Thursday, March 02, 2006

I love how Swedish has a bunch of false cognates; there are enough similarities between the languages for them to be believable too. Svelte come from French/Italian "svelto"-to stretch out. Not the Swedish "svält"-starvation. Slim and starving, they're so close in meaning that I only have dictionary.com's word that they're not actually linked.
Same goes for "tupplor", it means nap, looks like torpor to me. Might be one of those things where both languages got it from Latin and they evolved into almost the same word independently. Though it comes from the Latin word for stiff, which doesn't really describe a nap or lethargy. Would it really have changed into an almost opposite meaning in both languages yet retain the same sound? Again, I can only trust the etymologists know what they're talking about.
My favorite is the Swedish "prick", it means a guy, fellow, chap. If a Swede said it sarcastically to someone, no one would know.


Artificial gills. We'll be living Starfish before you know it. And just in case the rifters get too powerful, mind controlled sharks.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's actually tupplur.

Anonymous said...

oh, and prick also means dot. Not half as fun, I know.

Jinn said...

I'd be a lot more interested in remote control squid, or octopus...I'd make happy faces with their chromatophores =D