Author Archives: Miss Kitten

Being Drunk in Sweden

As a regular user of the City of Gothenburg’s signature trams, I’ve grown accustomed to seeing drunk people. Actually, drunk is really too weak an adjective to describe the condition of some of them. It needs help from a few verbs. Stumbling, slurring, slobbering, shit-faced drunk is more like it. This kind of drunken spectacle is seen regularly on the trams, but for some reason it’s less common on buses. I don’t recall ever seeing a loud, obnoxious and obviously drunk person on a bus. Apart from the so-called night bus that is, which should really be called the take-you-home-when-you’re-wasted-off-your-ass bus.

While I’m used to seeing drunks on the tram, I still find myself wondering what the hell is the deal with them. Have they no shame? Isn’t it illegal to be that drunk in public in Sweden? I know that to be drunk in public to that extent is completely illegal in the U.S.

Maybe this is why the Swedish government insists on the necessity of Systembolaget (Sweden’s infamous alcohol retail monopoly), as well as producing those anti-alcohol propaganda commercials that always air right after a commercial for some boozy product like Captain Morgan’s “Get a little Captain in you” Spiced Gold Rum (highly recommended, by the way…). The government claims that Systembolaget is essential because a number of highly biased studies have shown that it does regulate and restrict the amount of alcohol that one may purchase and consume, and thus it reduces instances of public drunkenness. Its limited hours are indeed very effective in limiting the amount of booze one may purchase. If you want to buy a bottle of wine or some regular beer after 2pm on Saturday then you are, as the saying goes, shit out of luck for the remainder of the weekend.

However, most people find various ways of working around the “system.” One can take one of the “booze cruise” ferries from Helsingborg or any other port that heads to Denmark or Germany. In fact, I’m planning on doing just that during Easter weekend. As soon as the boat exits Swedish waters, you are free to purchase cases of beer and large one-liter size bottles of liquor, both of which are unavailable at Systembolaget. I suppose the government just can’t allow the average Swedish resident to have access to that much booze. Naturally, we’d be powerless to prevent ourselves from consuming the entire liter bottle and all 24 cans of beer all at once. Because, you know, we’re stupid and the government is smart and knows what’s best for us.

And anyway, one can always go to a bar. For a country that really doesn’t want its citizens to get drunk, it sure does contain an awful lot of bars. Systembolaget closes its doors at the pitifully early hour of 6pm on Friday evening, and after that time every single bar in every single Swedish city is dispensing mass quantities of Swedish lager to just about every single Swede of legal drinking age.

Then a number of those people end up staggering onto some form of public transport to make their way home after their Friday night piss-up. And then people like me end up writing blog posts about them.

That is, if I’m not actually included in their numbers. *hic*

Word of the Day: oxymoron

Today’s word is one of my favorite words in the English language. An oxymoron is not a stupid person (or a stupid ox), but a rhetorical device in which the words that make it up are expressed in a seemingly incongruous or contradictory manner. This is sometimes done deliberately for dramatic effect, i.e.: gentle violence.

The oxymoron can be used for dramatic or ironic emphasis and thus it is often found in poetry, such as in Lewis Carroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter”:

The sun was shining on the sea.
Shining with all his might.
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright.
And this was odd because it was
The middle of the night.

The reader knows that it doesn’t make any sense for the sun to be shining brightly with all his might in the middle of the night, and that’s why this opening stanza is so effective. That and Carroll’s over all poetic brilliance, of course.

There are many different types of oxymorons and Wikipedia does a good job of explaining what they are.  I particularly enjoy the inadvertent oxymorons, which are basically rhetorical mistakes people have made in speech or writing, and they didn’t even realize what they just said or wrote. Examples include:

original copy
extremely average
definite possibility
objective opinion

Some of the above examples have been used so often that one might not even be aware that they don’t actually make any rhetorical sense.

Bye for now.

Word of the Day: the whole enchilada

Today’s word is actually a phrase. More precisely, it’s an idiom. Its meaning is basically the same as the phrases: “the whole ball of wax” and “the whole nine yards,” (among others) meaning “all of it” or “everything we’ve got.”

Finding the origins of idiomatic phrases is not always as straight-forward as one might think.  Like the phrase, “the whole ball of wax,” the origin of “the whole enchilada” is a bit of a mystery. The former phrase is so old that the original meaning has been lost over time, although there are a lot of guesses. Some think it originated with workers at Madame Tassauds, but this is not the case. It’s much older than that.

According to this website, “the whole enchilada” dates back to the 1960s, although the site doesn’t provide any references as to who originally coined it. A similar phrase, “the big enchilada” was forever immortalized when it was mentioned by John Ehrlichman on one of the infamous Watergate Tapes. He was referring to Attorney General John N. Mitchell. In this instance, “the big enchilada” means the same thing as the “the big cheese.”

PRESIDENT: Mitchell, you see, is never, never going to go in and admit perjury. I mean you can uh, talk about immunity and all the rest, but he’s never going to do that.
HALDEMAN: They won’t give him immunity anyway, I wouldn’t think, unless they figure they could get you. He is as high up as they’ve been.
EHRLICHMAN: He’s the big Enchilada

Several minutes of Googling around didn’t reveal any satisfactory explanation for the origin of “the whole enchilada.” Perhaps if I had more time I could dig a little deeper, but for now I’ll leave you with a picture of a tantalizingly delicious-looking “enchilada.”

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Yep, that’s an enchilada. Yesterday, Tobbe and I stopped to grab a bite to eat at a gatukök (Swedish kebab shop and pizzeria) which featured some Mexican dishes in addition to the usual gatukök fare. I ordered the chicken enchilada and that’s what I got. Tobbe ordered a kebab plate and this is what he got:

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That’s a proper kebab plate: a pile of french fries and shaved meat drenched in creamy sauce.

The “enchilada” I got didn’t look like any enchilada I’d ever eaten before, which is why I had to take a picture of it to show the folks back home. But it was actually really good. The sort of bread bowl it came in was crispy and delicious, but I wasn’t able to eat the whole enchilada.

Until next time.

A Warning

Every time you plagiarize,
God pokes out a kitten’s eyes.
Okay, perhaps that’s a bit flawed,
For those who don’t believe in God.
But, pass some old ideas as yours,
And you’ll break out in open sores.
To cheat or not to cheat, I know,
How tempting it can be, and so,
Just understand if you get caught,
I’ve warned you quite an awful lot.
So don’t try cheating in this course,
Or you’ll be flunked with no remorse.

Word of the Day: the long and short of it…

The word antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest “normal” word in the English language. That is to say it’s a word that isn’t a medical term, like for example: hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. Ironically, this is actually the fear of long words. Maybe they should have made it shorter.

However, there is one word (if you could even call it a word) that blows away all the competition for the Worlds Longest Word Lifetime Achievement Award. I found it on this website while searching the intarwebs for long words.

Drum roll please….

methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucyl phenylalanylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyl lysylglutamylglycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenyl alanylvalylthreonylleucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisol eucylglutamylglutaminylserylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartyl threonylleucylisoleucylglutamylalanylglycylalanylaspartyl alanylleucylglutamylleucylglycylisoleucylprolylphenyl alanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylaspartylglycylprolyl threonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalanylthreonylleucyl arginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylvalylthreonyl prolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylglutamyl methionylleucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysyl histidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucyl leucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalylphenyl alanylasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenyl alanyltyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalyl glycylvalylaspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalyl prolylvalylglutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanyl arginylglutaminylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginyl valylalanylprolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinyl prolylprolylaspartylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucyl leucylarginylglutaminylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycyl arginylglycyltyrosylthreonyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginyl alanylglycylvalylthreonylglycylalanylglutamylasparaginyl arginylalanylalanylleucylprolylleucylasparaginylhistidyl leucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysylglutamyltyrosylasparaginyl alanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglutaminylglycylphenylalanyl glycylisoleucylserylalanylprolylaspartylglutaminylvalyllysyl alanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanylglycylalanylalanylglycyl alanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanylisoleucylvalyllysylisol eucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhistidylasparaginylisoleucyl glutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionylleucylalanylalanylleucyl lysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminylprolylmethionyllysylalan
ylalanylthreonylarginylserine

This nearly 2,000 letter-long monstrosity  (1,913 words to be exact) is the name of some protein. Technically it’s not a word, since who the fuck could ever hope to pronounce that?

Word of the Day: hack

Short but powerful, the word ‘hack’ has multiple lingustic uses. It can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, a verbal phrase and an idiom.

However, I’ve chosen to highlight its use as an adjective.

The word ‘hack’ is a truncation of the word ‘hackneyed,’ which describes something trite and banal.

Example of formal usage:

The lyrics to 13 year-old Rebecca Black’s song, “Friday” are so hackneyed as to be utterly embarrassing.

Example of informal usage:

Jesus H. Christ, they really need to fire the hack writer who wrote that song.


To Paulo, with love: a limerick

(Yes, I know I said my next post would be a WOTD, but I need to give that a little more thought…)

This is dedicated to our dear friend Paulo Nunes, with respect, admiration and the greatest affection:

A spicy young fellow from Brazil,
Planned on working out daily until,
He became the crowned queen
Of the bodybuilding scene,
And the king of the weightlifting hill.

Förlåt, min svenska är inte så bra…

The title of this post is Swedish for “Sorry, my Swedish isn’t that good.” This is something that I repeat constantly. Here’s why.

It will be hard for this to sound like anything other than woefully self-pitying and bitter, but this is something that has been bothering me for a while. I’ve posted about this on Facebook so this may be a bit of repetition for some of you.

I’m pretty embarrassed about the fact that even after living in Sweden for nearly six years, I still struggle with the language. My level of listening comprehension is fairly high, but carrying on a decent conversation is still difficult for me. It’s. Just. Really. Hard. I’m reminded of my shortcomings on a daily basis because all of the meetings and conferences at work are held exclusively in Swedish, and many of my Swedish colleagues speak to me only in Swedish. Fair enough, even though this is an international school that employs several teachers whose Swedish ability is mediocre at best. This uncompromising policy has really improved my Swedish immensely in the last two years.

The problem (if one could even consider it a problem) is that it’s really not essential to know Swedish to live in Sweden. Just about everyone here speaks English to some degree, and it’s usually easier to just use English with a Swede than to struggle to communicate in the native language. Most Swedes are delighted to meet a native English speaker and relish the opportunity to show off their English skills. Because of this it’s easy to become lackadaisical in learning Swedish. Therefore, English speakers tend not make any real effort to learn the language until they end up in a situation where they really need to know it.

Despite my pitiful but gradually improving ability, I must acknowledge that my colleagues have been wonderfully patient and supportive. Indeed, most teachers are.

Unfortunately, the people who make me feel really stupid are certain members of Swedish boyfriend’s family. My listening ability is actually quite good (as previously mentioned), but many of them speak way too fast. Others have the heavy guttural Gothenburg accent, which makes it hard to understand them. When they speak to me I might not give an immediate response because my brain is still trying to process what I just heard. I must have pretty confused look on my face during this pause. Then they try yelling the same thing to me thinking that’s somehow going to help. It usually just confuses and flusters me even more. When that doesn’t work they try talking to me in that patronizing “I’ve told you a thousand times” way that an adult talks to a child. It’s unpleasant.

What’s even worse is when I make a mistake and get ridiculed for it. The other day I was talking to Tobbe’s grandmother and I mispronounced one word. We were talking about his sister and what a talented photographer she is. “Hon har mycket talang” (She has a lot of talent) I said. But I had mispronounced the word ‘talang’ as ‘talång’ (pronounced ‘Ta LONG’) She laughed. And laughed. And laughed. Apparently she didn’t notice that I wasn’t laughing with her. I was mortified. Really humiliated. Being laughed at in a ridiculing way is one of the things I hate the most. I wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground and die.

Not being able to speak the language well is utterly frustrating for me because I’m a perfectionist. I really hate having to do something knowing it’s going to be a half-ass effort. Learning to speak a new language is hard enough without someone laughing at you whenever you make a mistake. I have so little confidence in my ability. Therefore, whenever I’m about to speak Swedish to someone I’ve just met, I have to apologize for the awfulness of it first. Then at least they’ve been forewarned and hopefully won’t be insulted by my hopeless but unintentional butchering of their precious language.