{"id":319,"date":"2012-10-14T13:12:14","date_gmt":"2012-10-14T20:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rottendanish.com\/?p=319"},"modified":"2012-10-14T13:22:35","modified_gmt":"2012-10-14T20:22:35","slug":"the-british-are-coming-the-english-is-coming-are-you-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rottendanish.com\/?p=319","title":{"rendered":"The British are coming! The English is coming! Are you with?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The British are coming!” is of course the famous line attributed to Paul Revere, one of the founding fathers of USA, best known for his “Midnight Ride” from Boston to Lexington<\/a> on April 18, 1775. He was supposedly shouting “The British are coming!” to warn the rebel\u00a0colonist forces of an impending attack by the British\u00a0Redcoats. The line was immortalized, and apparently also made up, in a famous poem by Longfellow: “Paul Revere’s Ride<\/a>“. “Made up” because historians are of the conviction that while the ride really occurred, the actual warning was most likely delivered in silence…<\/p>\n

The “English is coming!” is my word-play on Paul Revere’s (or Longfellow’s) famous line. The English language and English words are of course sneaking their way into contemporary Danish vocabulary, both openly and silently. It’s no wonder in a country like Denmark, where upwards of 80% of Danes do<\/a>, or think they do :-), speak fluent English. So, the English is coming inside Danish. Are you with?<\/p>\n

“Are you with”: In Danish we often use the expression “Er du med?”, which correctly translated means “Do you follow me?”. Incorrect, verbatim translation is, however, “Are you with”. Yes, it is OK in Danish to end a sentence with a preposition. The trap, which many a Danish English-speaker\u00a0has fallen into, is of course that the preposition rules are different in English and also that some times English has different words, when Danish has just one. In this case translating “med” with “along” rather than “with” would yield maybe not a 100% correct English, but at least something much closer to it. Are you along?<\/p>\n

Any English-speaking visitor\u00a0visiting\u00a0Denmark today will be shocked by the prevalence of the fine English curse-word “F**ck”. It has sneaked its way in and it’s everywhere. Maybe you won’t see it written, but you’ll hear it used on TV, radio and pretty much everywhere interspersed into\u00a0otherwise\u00a0faultless Danish. This always reminds me of that general cultural observation that a curse in a\u00a0foreign\u00a0language is not really a curse. Even though most Danes speak and write English, it is NOT their primary language and therefore throwing in what just seems to be a funny-sounding\u00a0foreign\u00a0word, even though that word is not so nice in its original language, seems totally OK. I remember how in my youth in Denmark we used the funny sounding (to us) German word “gewesen” (=”has been”) to\u00a0refer\u00a0to anything we didn’t know the exact name of, sort of\u00a0equivalent\u00a0to the modern English slang words “do-hickey” and “whatchamacallit”…<\/p>\n

So, some English words, like “f**ck”, silently sneak their way into Danish. Eventually some get accepted and become “official” Danish:<\/p>\n

In my previous posting I mentioned the English word “to spend”, which does not have a direct equivalent in Danish. Well, a correction is needed and one that shows how it can be tricky when English words start appearing in Danish. “To spend” USED to NOT have a direct equivalent in Danish. Now it does have one. The official Danish vocabulary and spelling dictionary, Retskrivningsordbogen<\/a>, now includes the word “spendere”, which is the “danish-ized” direct adaptation of “to spend”. Clearly, if we Danes know it exists in English and it covers an exact, useful concept, we want it too :-). The trickiness of “spendere” is that its meaning is ever so slightly, slightly different in Danish!:<\/p>\n