Snail mail

A long awaited package finally arrived in the mail today. And I mean long awaited. The only copy of a specific video tape from our wedding in July has been missing since its departure from the owner on December 4th. It arrived today, February 4th, making the two month delivery time a new record as the slowest snail mail arrival to us yet.

Englegian

We usually use the term "Norwenglish" about the strange form of English that Norwegians tend to speak. I have to add the new term "Englegian" to define the strange form of Norwegian that English-speakers tend to speak.

It was on the plane from Oslo to Ålesund that a coupld of young Britons were discussing something that I didn't immediately understand. "Tack *)" one said. "What is tack?" After a while, they found out it was the same as "Thank you." At this point, I understood that they were looking into a Norwegian Parlour.

"It feels like there's something missing," on said. "There should be something more to it, like... Tack you!" He found this to be so hillarious that he added "I'm going to say this to all my friends now. Tack you!"

The next word they tried to understand was "Jayday **)" I tried very hard not to giggle.

*) Norwegian "Takk" (Thanks) should be pronounced with an open "ah" as in "Say aaaah" rather than as the English word "tack". If you want something extra, you can always say "Takk skal du ha" [Ta(h)kk ska(h)l doo ha(h)] = Thanks shall you have. Or the even loner "Takk skal du ha og gift skal du bli!" (Thanks shall you have and married shall you become.)

**) Norwegian "Jada" (Yeah yeah) should be pronounced with an open "ah" as in "Say aaaaah" rather than as the English word "day." The "J" is more like a "Y" as in "Yeah" rather than the boy name "Jay". Hence [Ya(h)da(h)].