Latest news with #Gudrun-Sjödin

Local Sweden

Fjortis to lattepappa: 21 compound words for Swedish stereotypes

Swedes have a rich tradition of coining creative compound words to label and ridicule one another. Here are some of the funniest. Advertisement These kinds of word seem to be the speciality of certain kind of bitter middle-aged man (who have their own compound label: surgubbar) and as such the scorn tends to be focused on the rich and overprivileged, the naively idealistic, and young people in general. So any person with left-wing views but a white collar job is part of the rödvinsvänstern (the "red-wine left"). Then there's the kulturvänstern, which has roughly the same meaning as "woke". You can also use PK-maffian, meaning 'politically correct mafia,' to describe people who police language for politically unacceptable positions. Anyone idealistic can be written off as a godhetsknarkare. This means literally a "goodness-addict", and means basically the same as "do-gooder" in English, although perhaps with an even greater tinge of self-righteousness. Those who escaped city life between the 1960s and the 1980s to live in farmsteads in the countryside are called grönavågare, after the "green wave" or gröna våg, which launched Sweden's eco and organic subculture. Someone whose cultural aspirations go higher than football, Hollywood films and barbecuing risks being labelled a kulturtant if they're a woman. These are the round-spectacled, Gudrun-Sjödin wearing women of upper middle age who keep Sweden's theatres, art galleries and concert halls in business. Kulturmannen, "the culture man", rather than being a male version of the kulturtant, describes men who are part of the cultural elite. Male theatre or film directors clad in leather jackets and neck scarves, who keep a collective iron grip on Swedish cultural life, and are often deeply sexist and even abusive of women. Men who take long paternity leaves where they push prams around monied, bohemian parts of Sweden's major cities are dismissed as lattepappor (latte daddies). When their children are a little older and they're back at their agency, they might graduate to being surdegspappor (sour dough daddies), the kind of grown-up hipster who brews his own IPA and sports a bushy beard. Advertisement It's not only the left who come in for attack, however. The privileged young men with slicked back hair and smart expensive shirts who you'll find ostentatiously knocking back champagne in expensive pavement restaurants in upmarket parts of Stockholm are called stekare. Gay men who support right-wing parties (chiefly the Moderaterna) are grouped together as högerbögar, right-wing gays. The nerdy men, who also tend to be on the right and who follow every arms order sent to Ukraine with obsessive detail, are called Militärt Överintresserad Personer, MÖP, or möpare in the plural. A child or young adult who focuses their lives entirely on schoolwork, a "swot" in English, is known as a plugghäst, literally a "study-horse". More generally Stockholm residents tend to be resentfully referred by people living elsewhere as Stockholmare, but they used to be called nollåttor (08ers) after the dialling code for Stockholm. Advertisement The "Middle-aged man in Lycra" (Mamil) in English becomes lycramannen, "the lycra man" in Swedish. When it comes to young people, surgubbar have historically dismissed gaggles of badly made-up teenage girls who jump on every trend and pretend to be older than they are as fjortisar (Ok, that's not a compound word) Right at the bottom of the class spectrum, you'll find the A-lagare, literally the "A-teamers", which is a derogatory way of describing people who sit in public places, such as town squares, drinking alcohol (also not a compound word). It's not only middle-aged men in Sweden who are surgubbar, as it happens. A middle-aged woman can also be a surtant. And a middle-aged man might also be a mysfarbror, a sort of kindly, cardigan-wearing middle-aged man, like your ideal upper secondary school teacher. But unlike their more bitter counterpart, you're unlikely to finding the coining derisive compound words.