Monday, March 23, 2009

Adventures in Reading

Not so long ago, I was reading a book that I got for Christmas. It's called Snømannen (The Snowman). I needed some help with a few unfamiliar words.

The conversation went something like this:

"What are brystvortene," I called into the other room, where Seven was doing whatever it was he was doing in the other room.
"Brystvortene? Those are nipples," he called back.
Hmmmm. So this character has no nipples. Bizarre.

A few minutes later. . .

"What's a smekken," I asked as Seven walked into the room.
"Oh, that means a zipper," Seven responded, while gesturing zipping his fly up and down for emphasis. I guess it's slang for the pants zipper.

Not so long after. . .

"What does pule mean?" I was pretty sure I knew from the context, but wanted to be sure.
"What are you reading?!"
"Porn," he joked.
Yeah, right. He wished.
"No, that book I wanted for Christmas," I said. As if I have time to sit around reading porn.
"Oh," he said. "Well, anyway, pule means fuck, as in fucking someone."
Aha! I DID get it from context!

No wonder I hadn't learned these words in my Norwegian class, and that's just the prologue! The possibilites for my vocabulary, if I can manage to finish this book, are endless!

Not that any of those words will come in handy in conversations with the in-laws.

4 comments:

Heather said...

The bad words are always the easiest to learn because we remember them the best, lol!
-h

Reeta said...

That sounds like a Jo Nesbø-book. (Not that he usually have so many brystvortenes in his text, but because of the title.)
I haven't rean Snømannen, but almost all the others from him. Do you like that one?

Miki said...

It is a Jo Nesbø book. I am not too far into it, but it is really good. I can tell, though, that I am missing a lot of small details and things. I guess I will just have to keep hubby around so I can understand what I am reading!

I know his books are translated. I would guess into English, too. Do you know if you can buy English copies in Oslo? My dad loves this kind of thing, so maybe I could pick up copies for him.

Reeta said...

Yes, they have translated his books in English too and you can find them from Oslo or even order them from Internet for example www.tanum.no