With the Norwegian government recently deciding to massively increase the US military presence in this country, I just really want to have some derogatory way of referring to Usonians in the Norwegian language. The problem is that I cannot find any good word for this: existing words fall short; foreign words I’m familiar with either don’t translate well, or don’t sound good when loaned, or aren’t easily understood; and I’m having a hard time coming up with a brand new word to fill this gap myself.
I’m hoping that by asking here that I might be able to find some inspiration, or perhaps even be enlightened about a Norwegian-language term that I didn’t know before.
seppo: septic tank; yank
“Seppo” is my favorite when speaking English, it felt kinda weird to use at first because it looks vaguely Japanese or Finnish (indeed Seppo is a Finnish name and 説法 means “preaching”) but I quickly grew fond of the word.
oh shit there’s a furigana markdown for lemmy.
Also great for 汉语拼音
thefuck happening? https://github.com/commonmark/commonmark-spec/issues/432
And it works with emojis!
It doesn’t seem to work for me:
That’s weird I see 4
Oh, weird. Looks like a Chrome/Firefox quirk. It works in Chromium, but I just checked in Firefox and got the same result that you did.
AYO WHAT THE FUCK
Rhyming slang is for some reason so funny to me.
Apples and pears
Dead horse
I’ll add Americ***s with the c word in the place of the asterices. I’ve never actually said seppo out loud, but I say yank/yankee all the time.
Both often full of shit
Septic is totally my favorite.
I’ve definitely just heard people in Czech refer to Americans as burgers. not very creative of course
You are what you eat
наглосаксы naglosaxy, a play on the words наглый nagliy (petulant/insolent) and англосаксы anglosaxy (Anglo-Saxons)
As a commie, I don’t think there’s anything more insulting than calling me what I am: an american.
Ppl from central and south america, and the caribbean, generally resent the Usonians usurpation of that term, because americas originally referred to both continents. ppl from Bolivia, Ecuador, or Haiti are americans.
Those are truly fighting words.
I’ve been told the origin of the word “gringo” comes from somewhere in Latin America, the people telling US soldiers to leave: “green” (the color of the uniforms), and “go”. That one seems topical but it’s unlikely many Americans will get in a huff over it, not really seen as a “bad” word.
Since I’m an American, I’m trying to think of words that the typical trooper would get offended at (but also not problematic). “Bubba” kinda works. Soldiers are also suuuper sensitive about the possibility that some other guy is screwing their wife back in the US, so maybe some Norwegian word that plays off that could work.
Edit: Also, American soldiers really get off on the idea that they are superior to normal Americans. Only natural, given how deeply Americans lick their boots. Maybe you can pick the most boring, normal “American” name you can think of like “Kevin” and call all of them that. I think that would get under their skin.
“Boot” for the troops specifically
Given that the word “gringo” almost certainly predates the existence of the United States, I’d question that etymology.
The most likely origin of “gringo” is from “griego”, so the original meaning was basically “someone who speaks unintelligibly”
A Mexican taxi driver once told me that “gringo” came from “green go” as well, but his explanation was that once you get your green card, you go. He definitely joking, of course, but interesting that there are two versions of the “green go” etymology.
Why would Hispanic people say “green go” instead of “lárgate verdeños”?
because they would ignore anything that is not in english
They would ignore anything coming from a brown person either way.
Also this is tangential, but when I was a kid, my classmates and I would prank our not-Spanish-speaking friends by making them say “pink cheese green goes” without ever telling what it means. I’m sure this tradition comes from the diet of these green troops too lmao
Gringo isn’t usually used to refer specifically to usonians though.
A surprising amount of people at my workplace (and in the mosque) very much know the Maoist Standard spelling AmeriKKKa.
Even in the Estonian language, the usual term is “jänki”, quite literally meaning “yankee”. Or rather, “YanKKKee”.
In Finnish it’s also “jenkki” as in a yankee. And AmeriKKKa itself is “Jenkkilä” which I suppose could translate as yankeeville or something.
In swedish we say “jänkare” as a derogatory term, you don’t have anything similar?
Isn’t that just Yankee pronounced in a swedish accent?
Sure is, still really fun to say
Do you have “yankee” in Norwegian? A lot of Americans don’t like being called that for some reason
Gets called yankee
immediately thinks about doodleWe do have yankee, I just think we can do better.
Gringo is evergreen
Peendos (пиндос). And US is called Peendostan
Got our ass (?)
I don’t know where this term comes from, but it does sound really funny. So yes, got your ass
I’ve heard some ndns on the rez use
pkweshgaswhich means cracker/crackers.Jankes, Amerykaniec pretty mild stuff. But I do like the british „seppo”.
Also, lol, lmao at this site
https://slurs.info/slurs/americans
EDIT: Honestly Krauts have it best, because they made a whole song lmao
“Ami Go Home” was honestly kind of an inspiration for this thread
if you can find a word that sounds like and signifies “trash”, it could be good. simple insults are good. “Yankee trash” etc. in the US being called “trash” (not garbage) is ainsult that catches people off guard (because it’s not a cussword or gross) and plays into the ideology of certain people/families having a “culture of poverty” that makes them unable to rise in the totally-not-fake meritocracy. growing up, it’s a scold families might use in private to sanction against styles of dress or poor manners. “don’t be trash/trashy”.
of course some people say it to friends in familiarity, but among strangers it would be… not good. I saw two middle aged women in a grocery store parking lot threaten to murder each other with it last winter.
it’s kind of funny, in dialectal Norwegian the word “boss” means “trash/garbage” but it’s identical to the word “boss” as in one’s boss or the boss in a video game.
People also do just straight up use the English word “trash” sometimes…
As an American who has always called my supervisor boss, I love this.
This works for toki pona: ma jaki means “trash land” or “gross land” or “the land of trash”.
Also kinda sounds like yanqui too so double points.
sina jan pi toki pona‽
tenpo ni la mi kama sona e ni! mi kama sona kepeken sitelen tawa lon youtube. tenpo kama lili la, sitelen tawa li pini tawa mi
mi sona ala e ni: lon ni li jan pi toki pona. lemmygrad li jo e kulupu pi toki pona, taso mi kepeken ala e ni lon tenpo ni.
mi mute o pali e sitelen musi pi jan pali lon ni.
mi sona ala e ni: lon ni li jan pi toki pona
mi mute o pali e sitelen musi pi jan pali lon ni.
mi sona ala e ni
It means: “I didn’t know there are toki ponists here. We should make toki pona worker/communist memes here.”
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh now it seems obvious that that’s the meaning
No probs! Its kinda funny to me that toki pona works best in person, because you have some situational context, yet its mostly used online and we have to figure out whether “ilo toki” means computer, phone, chat program, etc in a text box with zero context.
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Eh, I don’t think weight is a good thing to use as an insult, necessarily.
