28 September, 2008

mapping of one language to another

it's funny to find pieces of your own language embedded in the oddest of places in a foreign land.



heh, yes, i'm soooo juvenile.

looking at the swedish definition of fart in lexin my favorite tool for communicating with swedish coworkers, they describe it as such:


Swedish entry word
fart [fa:r_t] farten farter noun

hastighet, snabbhet

English translation
speed, pace, rate

Examples
  • i hög fart---at high speed
  • det var full fart på försäljningen---the sale had really taken off
  • av bara farten---automatically, unintentionally

Compounds
  • fart|fylld |fyllt---speedy
  • fart|begränsning -en---speed limit
  • fart|blind---fail to adjust to a slower speed
  • fart|gräns---speed limit
  • fart|kontroll---speed check (trap)
  • fart|syndare---person who exceeds the speed limit

Swedish entry word
fart [fa:r_t] farten farter noun

färd

English translation
part of journey

Compounds
  • nedfart---descent



i'm thinkin' utfart and infart maps more to the part of the journey than the speed thing being as they were the exit and entrance to a parking garage. however, this got me to thinking of the etymology of the american-english usage of fart... i'm thinking it came from the "unintentional" part of the definition. like, "uhh i didn't mean to do that," or "oops, couldn't help it."

ok, i didn't mean to spend too much time on this. i guess i'm just farting around :-)

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