Friday 17 April 2015

Blogging from A to Z in April - The Letter O - Friday 17th April 2015

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Thursday 17th April 2015 - The Letter O.





















 O is for all of those O-ORD in Swedish (='un'-, 'im'- and 'in-words'; often adjectives) that mean the opposite or the negation of the ground form. Examples? OMÖJLIGT (=impossible) or OTROLIGT (=unbelievable, incredible) OSANT (=untrue, false, not true, a lie) OSKÖNT (=not beautiful, not pretty, ugly) OANTRÄFFBAR (=unavailable) OUPPNÅLIGT (unreachable) OGÖRLIGT (undoable) OSYNLIGT (=invisible) OÖVERTRÄFFAT (=unbeatable).

I think you get the picture.

In English the over-use of these negating prefixes is used for fun , such as wishing someone a happy un-birthday. But you would never say 'happy un-birthday' in Swedish. But certain Swedish writers have actually created new words for their stories by using prefixes and suffixes in new and unexpected ways, or just making new compound words putting old words together.

More examples?

Have an un-bad day today!

Thank you for reading!

Best wishes,
Anna












First Commenter:
Tanya Walton

http://www.allotments4you.com/2015/04/whats-been-happening-on-plot.html

3 comments:

Tanya. said...

Swedish always has so much more sense to it that English!!

Great post....I have been trying to catch up with everyone after yet another long break....your A-Z is going well...made any headway wih some bee jewellery yet??

Unknown said...

Dear Tanya,
Yes. I need to ask you what you would like and show you samples.
Let me email you about that.
Best wishes,
Anna

S. L. Hennessy said...

Haha, I love that. Have an un-bad day to you too!

Good luck with the A to Z Challenge!
A to Z Co-Host S. L. Hennessy
http://pensuasion.blogspot.com/

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