Archive for March, 2012

The Local list hits YouTube

Miscellaneous: March 28th, 2012 by OG

A reader has made a YouTube version of our recent List of Ten Swedish words you won’t find in English

Thanks to The Swedish Lad for that one! Stay tuned at The Local for more fun lists in the not too distant future.

The latest Word of the Week from The Local

Miscellaneous: March 26th, 2012 by DL

Time once again for us to announce The Local’s Word of the Week for last week, March 19-23 (week 12).

Readers had to search extra hard as last week’s word didn’t appear as often as previous words of the week.

Ironically, this rather sparse showing for last week’s word is more or less in direct contrast with its meaning.

So what was the Word of the Week?

Bevy

According to Merriam Webster‘s online dictionary, bevy is defined as:

1) a large group or collection
2) a group of animals and especially quail

Equivalent Swedish words include “skock” and “flock”, according to Tyda.se.

As it turned out, however, there wasn’t really a bevy of articles featuring last week’s Word of the Week, which appeared in the following stories:

iPad-hungry Swedes make tablet sales double
Swan ‘chaos’ erupts after Swedish rocket attack

Keep an eye out this week for more out-of-the ordinary words which might qualify as the Word of the Week.

Let us know your guesses or your own suggestions by sending an email to news@thelocal.se or tweeting us @thelocalsweden – with a #tlwow hashtag.

Word of the week…. revealed!

Miscellaneous: March 19th, 2012 by OG

The Local wins the third round of Word of the Week, despite more guesses than ever this time.

It seems we caught you out with a few red herrings, such as kerfuffle, and bamboozle.

But, The Local did the final bamboozling, and we can now reveal that the word of the week for the 12th to the 19th March (known as week 11 in Sweden) was…

Oblivion.

Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a noun meaning

: the fact or condition of forgetting or having forgotten;especially : the condition of being oblivious

: the condition or state of being forgotten or unknown

Its Swedish equivalent according to tyda.se is glömska, meaning “The state of being disregarded or forgotten.

In case you don’t remember this popping up every day, or don’t believe us – here is the list of articles containing “oblivion”.

• District court ‘forgot’ child porn crime case
• Swedish woman’s hairy armpit hurrah goes viral
• Swedish comics set to storm Edinburgh Festival
• Volvo ‘in talks’ with NBA superstar Jeremy Lin
• Begrimed baguettes cause bakery battle

In terms of a Swedish word we quite like at The Local – why not try “att harkla” – a verb meaning “to clear your throat”. Sure, not an easy one to slip into a conversation, but no doubt likely to impress someone with your expertise.

Be sure to let us know if you think you’ve seen an unusual word popping up this week, email us or tweet to us @thelocalsweden – with a #tlwow hashtag.

Will you be the first to guess it right, or will we be taking in the honour for the fourth week running.

Sweden’s 15 most influential tweeters

Miscellaneous: March 15th, 2012 by OG

If you’ve already followed the local staff on Twitter and are looking to follow more people, here’s the full list of Sweden’s top 15 “most influential” tweeters, according to Medieakademin’s research. There are 200,000 people using Twitter in Sweden.

1 Jonas Gardell, comedian/author.
2 Carl Bildt, politician.
3 Annika Lantz, journalist.
4 Timbuktu, musician.
5 Magnus Betnér, comedian.
6 Soran Ismail, comedian.
7 Niklas Svensson, journalist.
8 Maria Wetterstrand, politician.
9 Emanuel Karlsten, social media expert.
10 Jan Gradvall, journalist.
11 Fredrik Virtanen, journalist.
12 Hans Rosling, professor of international health.
13 Leif Pagrotsky, politician.
14 Isabella Löwengrip, blogger.
15 Lena Sundström, journalist

The Local’s new ‘Word of the Week’

Miscellaneous: March 12th, 2012 by OG

For the last two weeks, The Local has been including a “Word of the Week” in at least one story on every weekday, in an effort to add a little spice to the news and to keep readers on their toes.

There were a handful of emails and tweet-guesses; however, no-one succeeded again this week, and now The Local has taken home the first two rounds.

The Word of the Week for March 2-March 9 (known as “Week 10″ in Sweden) was:

“Flabbergasted”

Defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a transitive verb meaning “to overwhelm with shock, surprise, or wonder”

The word appeared in the following five stories last week:

• Gang of kids suspected of Uppsala burglary wave
• Sword-wielding Swedish teen attacks couple in car
• Ikea ‘not wrong’ to bar a 5-year-old from ball pit
• Gun-wielding threats no grounds for eviction
• Licence confirms Swede’s ‘star’ status

And for those working on their Swedish, here’s The Local’s Swedish word of the week, which obviously never made it into any articles, but has a special place in our hearts:

Att flanera

Which according to tyda.se means “to saunter, or stroll about”. Pepper your Swedish small talk with this one to impress your friends!

So – keep your eye out this week for a word that’s a little out of the ordinary, and seems to be popping up regularly… one’s already up there…

And feel free to let us know your guesses (or provide suggestions) via Twitter at @TheLocalSweden with a #tlwow hashtag or drop an email to news@thelocal.se — Will YOU be the first ever correct guesser?

Happy reading!

Follow us on Twitter!

Miscellaneous: March 6th, 2012 by OG

Here at The Local, we just thought we’d remind you that we’re actively tweeting. For those of you with Twitter, our Swedish journalists are tweeting at the following accounts:

David Landes, Editor: @davelandes

Rebecca Martin, Deputy Editor: @darlinbec

Oliver Gee, Journalist: @TheUppsalaKoala

Of course, The Local Live Feed is available at @TheLocalSweden

Be sure to follow them for the news as it happens, for live-tweeting from Sweden’s bigger events, and we’d even venture to suggest the occasional laugh out loud (all in 140 characters or less, of course).

In the meantime, watch this space as we keep you updated with further online developments.

Let us know if there are other social media networks you think The Local should embrace!

Keeping you in the loop, The Local.

Word of the Week: Feb. 27-March 2

Media, Miscellaneous: March 5th, 2012 by DL

Since last week (February 26-March 2), The Local has been including a “Word of the Week” in at least one story on every weekday.

We’re encouraging readers to keep a close eye on our stories to see if they can ferret out exactly which word has been chosen to add a bit of linguistic spice to our texts.

Following our mention of the Word of the Week in last week’s Fridayemail, a number of readers submitted their guesses via Twitter including “gobsmacked” and “Estelle”, the name of Sweden’s newest princess.

However, the Word of the Week for February 26-March 2 (known as “Week 9″ in Sweden) was:

Blistering

Indeed, blistering, defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “extremely intense or severe” or “very rapid” appeared in the following five stories last week:

Football phenom Guidetti set for Sweden debut
Stockholm men ranked ‘world’s sexiest’
Swedish man paid cash to have money cleaned
Sweden beats Croatia 3-1
Teen kills man, 84, over ‘sex blackmail’ plot

According to online English-Swedish dictionary Tyda.se, the Swedish translations for “blistering” include” brännande”, “svidande” or “hastig”.

Be sure to keep an eye out for the new Word of the Week in stories published this week. The word will be revealed here next week.

And feel free to to let us know your guesses (or provide suggestions)  via Twitter at @TheLocalSweden with a #tlwow hashtag or drop an email to  news@thelocal.se.

Happy reading!