Monday, March 30, 2009

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.