The word that describes your country by some cultural standards!

[Livgivare]

I think that the word that can describe the USA is "The American Dream" and Finland has theirs "Sisu". So I guess that we could write down the singe most wellknown word or some short thing that sums up the cultural standards of our differnet countries. If there is two words that sums up everything take it here as well.

So here it comes the first Swedish word:

Lagom: Lagom has got many histories arround the meaning, some have claimed that the word comes from the vikings that had a huge glass of beer that everyone had to drink from. And therefore the beer had to travel arround the table and each and everyone had to drink just about enough to get their taste of the beer but not too much since they needed to share the drink. If this is true I don't know, there is some other explanations that are more boring then this one but I guess this sums up the word better then any else...the word Lagom today means that it is not over the top, not really below the deepest pit or far out on the side, it is right in the middle and something like the middle fat milk you can buy in the grosary store. Many Swedes find this word boring and taste-less and I am not very fond of it either, I find it dull.

The second Swedish word:

Un-Swedishness: This word came as a opposite to Lagom and everything connected to Lagom. If a Swedish person is open, funny, happy, wild, over the top, social, talks with everyone, drinks like a Frenchman and is anything but Lagom: Then you are so Un-Swedish and that is really positive and shall be saluted and if any famous person is Un-Swedish that person is a hero. This can also be called the word that sums up the cultrual dizziness that Swedes have about ourselves. We have became so "modernized" that we lost what was really us some decades ago and therefore everything that is old and Lagom is cool.


Now it is your turn...

Love Leelene

[cdn2wheeler]

Canada:

take off, eh?