[Ads-l] Swedish neologisms of the year

[Mark Mandel]

A Swedish friend sent me a link. *Warning: The top item on the page is a
NSFW <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_safe_for_work> photo.*

*Here Are The Incredible Words Sweden Invented In 2014
<http://www.vocativ.com/culture/fun/swedish-words/>*

The Swedish Language Council has blessed the Swedish language this year
with a list of 40 new words—all of them absolutely phenomenal, all of them
imminently adoptable for even non-Swedish speakers.

There are your usual suspects: *usie* (the plural of “selfie”), *normcore*
(that current fashion trend of purposefully emulating 1990s mall dads) and
other cultural touchstones you might find in year-end additions from
Merriam-Webster and the like. And then there are some truly
unique creations that could only have come from a country as steadfastly
unique as Sweden.

It goes on to list 15 of them, mostly not looking as much like English
loans as these two do. I wrote back to him

Are these neologisms for real? I can't tell if this is real or satire.
¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?

He replied:

Oh, they’re for real, it’s sort of a tradition for the Language Council
(
http://www.sprakochfolkminnen.se/om-oss/kontakt/sprakradet/om-sprakradet/in-english.html)

to advertise the most popular new words during the past year, see the full
list at
http://www.sprakochfolkminnen.se/download/18.cbc0f5b1499a212bbf1d2a/1419832595190/nyordslista+2014.pdf

The words won’t necessarily find their way into SAOL, the Swedish Academy
Glossary
(
http://www.svenskaakademien.se/svenska_spraket/svenska_akademiens_ordlista/saol_pa_natet/ordlista),

but that in turn has its own list of new words that will be added to the
next edition:
http://www.svenskaakademien.se/svenska_spraket/svenska_akademiens_ordlista/exempel_pa_strukna_ord
(Unfortunately without explanations and examples.)

Mark

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