Molboland/Gotham/Place where simpletons are from

molboland noun Mols, about the same as Gotham
In Kunnskapsforlaget's Norsk-engelsk stor ordbok. This definition refers to Gotham, the village in Nottinghamshire, England. There is a nursery rhyme about the residents of the village being imbeciles. I had never heard the nursery rhyme and am sure many others have not either. When I hear "Gotham" I think of New York City or the fictional city that his home to Batman. And I am sure many more people have these associations than the village in Nottinghamshire. This definition should include a description (home of fools, imbeciles, simpletons, etc.), because I suspect a majority of English speakers would not have the intended association with "Gotham." And if you don't know about this meaning of Gotham, the definition doesn't help you understand the significance of "Mols" or "molboland."

springa på bio/keep running to the cinema/go to the movies

springa på bio (toaletten) keep running to the cinema (lavatory)

This is from Norstedts stora svensk-engelska ordbok. And predictably just the dictionary's use of cinema and lavatory, which I find to be extremely uncolloquial mely in American English, bugged me. But obviously cinema and lavatory are actual English words that are fully intelligible. What bugs me is that the two don't seem to mean the same thing.

To "keep running to the lavatory" would imply that you are continually being interrupted by your need to go to the bathroom. I have no idea what it would mean to "keep running to the cinema." That would seem to imply that you don't stay there very long, like not long enough to see a movie, which begs the question: why the heck are you going there if not to see a movie? So, wondering if perhaps I'm crazy to object to this phrase (maybe it's a completely common thing to do in the UK--how would I know?), I looked up "keep running to the cinema" on Google. Zero hits. I am vindicated. Zero Internet hits for an English phrase is pretty much proof that no one says it.

If you search the Swedish phrase "springa på bio," however, you will find that people do indeed use that phrase. In fact, I got 174,000 hits for it. That's a lot of hits for a smallish perfusion language like Swedish. Based on context, it would appear that this is a completely normal way to say "go to the movies" in Swedish.

Not sure why the good folks at Norstedts couldn't include a viable translation for the phrase. "Go to the movies" gets well over a million hits.

My teeth are icing!/Det iser i tennene mine/[Dental] sensitivity to cold

From Kunnskapsforlaget's Norsk-Engelsk Stor Ordbook:

å ise verb 4. (about teeth) ice • det iser i tennene mine my teeth are icing

I just looked this verb up and was shocked by the fourth definition. What the heck does that mean? My teeth are icing? Please. No one says that. I'm a pretty well educated native speaker of English and I don't even know what it means. Help! My teeth are icing! Sounds terrible whatever it is.

So, I did a search on google, and I can assure the publisher that their English translation gets ZERO hits on google. And that's hard to do. Zero hits is impressive.

Then I investigated in Norwegian, on Norwegian sites, what the Norwegian expression refers to. It refers to dental sensitivity to cold. Like when you drink a cold or eat ice cream and feel a shooting pain from a sensitive tooth. In English we call this "sensitivity to cold." Kunnskapsforlaget, take note!

Gammeldags/old fashioned/square

From Kunnskapsforlaget's Norsk-Engelsk Stor Ordbok:

gammeldags old-fashioned, out of date, outdated, dated, antiquated, square (colloquial)

My beef with this definition is the inclusion of the word "square." This sense of "square" as meaning dated is itself quite dated. This use probably peaked around 1960 and certainly fell out of fashion by the 1980s. Which means that it has not been used this way for 30 years! And if you were a native speaker of Norwegian, relying on this dictionary to help you use decent-sounding English. The use of this word in this sense would make you sound silly. And quite out of date...

Methinks the dictionary could use a little updating.

Vicka på foten/wag one's foot/swing one's foot

This one is from Norstedt's Big Swedish-English Dictionary.

vicka vicka på foten wag one's foot

This is being used of someone who is nervous. She is sitting in a chair, fidgeting and doing this with her foot. And I say, huh? As a native speaker of English, I would never say she was "wagging" her foot. But the English speaking world is vast, so I turn to Google. Perhaps other people do, just not in any of the areas I've ever lived.

Google hits:
wag one's foot - 0
wags her foot - 2
wags his foot - 5
wagging her foot - 10
wagging his foot - 10

I hardly think this is a good translation if it gets so few hits on the Internet. And honestly, a couple of those hits seem to come from foot fetish web sites and another is quoting a badly translated Chinese proverb. When I get in the middle of one of these muddles it's always hard to stop and think of what I would actually say. So, I'll try a few options that come to mind:

Google hits:
shakes her foot - 1280
shaking her foot - 3150
tap her foot - 773
+"tapping her foot" +nervous - 980
+"swinging her foot" +nervous - 626

I'm going to go with "swinging her foot" because "vicka" means "wobble, rock or sway." But, yet again, I would like to complain that I don't think "wag one's foot" is a viable translation option.

sockerdricka/lemonade/7 Up/Sprite

This one is from Norstedt's Big Swedish-English Dictionary.

sockerdricka noun lemonade

So, when millions of English speakers hear the word "lemonade" they picture a drink made out of lemon juice, sugar and water. Is that what Swedes are picturing when they hear "sockerdricka"? No. First of all, "sockerdricka," which literally means "sugar drink," is carbonated! They used to make it bubbly with yeast, but now it's just done with carbonated water. Second of all it traditionally contained ginger.

I just don't think lemonade is a viable translation. 7 Up or Sprite are much closer. Or maybe citrous soda or lemon soda. Possibly even ginger ale. Honestly, I think Norstedt's was negligent on this one...

umgås med en plan/revolving a plan/hatching a plan

This one is from Norstedt's Big Swedish-English Dictionary.

umgås: "umgås med en plan" be nursing a scheme, be revolving a plan

I categorically reject "revolving a plan." And it's easy to see that the rest of the world does, too. Here's a quick tally of the Google searches for a number of the possible translations that come to mind:
working on a plan - 2,260,000 Google hits
hatching a plan - 144,000 Google hits
mulling over a plan - 4,510 Google hits
hatching a scheme - 799 Google hits
nursing a scheme - 124 Google hits
revolving a plan - 36 Google hits

Once again, I'm ready to scream at my dictionary. It's like Norstedt's has gone out of its way to try to find the least common possible translations and then decided to put their money on those. It's like they have no working knowledge of English. Who's coming up with this stuff?

Although it gets the most hits, I'm not sure "working on a plan" is really the best translation. There's something very matter of fact about "working on a plan" and there are much more matter of fact ways to say this in Swedish. I'm probably going to go with "hatching a plan" because it feels a little more, I don't know, conspiratorial. Like the Swedish.