Language

Some Swedish names didn't look good to those of us limited to the English language - the "Acne Style" clothing range might not go down well in English-speaking countries (especially with teenagers) and we weren't tempted to try the food at the "Pong Asia" restaurant.

At the Jamie Oliver restaurant in Stockholm the WC was fitted out with toilet suites and wash basins made by Thomas Crapper & Co. The colloquialism "crapper" not surprisingly was adopted by American servicemen in WW1 to refer to a toilet. However, the word "crap" is not derived from poor Mr Crapper's name as it dates back to at least the mid 1800s.

The toilet cisterns at the restaurant are cast iron with "Oliver's" stamped on the front. I thought that was a bit over the top until I read that many bathroom items are stolen from Jamie's restaurants, including cisterns!

In Stockholm we watched an episode of Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries with Swedish subtitles. Goodness knows what the Swedes made of the story based on a 1920s feud between two VFL clubs - a style of football most won't know, football scores that would be incomprehensible, and lingo that probably gets mangled in translation. At least Phryne wears fabulous clothes! In Latvia the English language programs tend to be dubbed so it was hard to follow the plot of a "Big Bang Theory" without subtitles. 

The photo was taken in Stockholm just to show how sunny it has been. For the past 6 weeks we have had sunny weather except for an occasional cloudy day. In Riga the sun and rain seem to alternate but so far we have not been caught in the rain.

Comments

SrAct3 said…
Love all this language.
22 July 2017 at 21:02
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