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- "Gardinerna är vita och svart…
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Is vita och svarta the preferred order? In English, things (TV, films etc.) tend to be black and white.
It probably is always that way. In Italian too, they say "bianco e nero." It will be interesting to hear what a native speaker has to say about svartvit.
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I thought Zzzzz...:s comment already covered it all. black and white is svartvit, so there's a difference in meaning if you say vita och svarta.
How is the meaning different? Does vita och svarta make it sound as if one curtain is white and the other one is black? (Whereas svartvit would imply a pattern on the tyget?)
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svartvit just focuses on them having no other colors. If you say either vita och svarta or svarta och vita, it is likely that whichever color you mention first dominates. It is quite possible that you are talking about multiple curtains, of which some are white and some black, though it does not have to be that way.
- 1461
It's often used that way, and of similar things, like en svartvit syn på världen 'a black and white view of the world', but I wouldn't say it's exclusively for that. More like it's closer to monochrome in meaning.
Btw there's a bird called svartvit flugsnappare, called European pied flycatcher in English, where svartvit actually means svart och vit. – You're right black and white movies can only be called svartvita though, I just don't think it explains the whole difference. It's more like, once you have two expressions for something, there will usually be some distribution.
Ahh, now I just realized that svartvit is more a term for pictures or films, is that it?
Thanks for the link to the svarvit flugsnappare, what a cute little bird. They look and sound a bit like a svarvit version of our American Goldfinch.
Jag har två katter. En är vit och svart. Den andra är svart och vit. Kul, tack.
To answer my own question: svartvit, -t, -a (adj.) = 'black and white'.
A native speaker of English would normally avoid saying 'white and black'; it is not idiomatic. If you mean to say that there are white patches and black parts in the curtains' fabric (or something more complicated) most people would specify that using more words...
Does "gardin" include net curtains or only the thick sort you can't see through?
Bit of both - I might call it a gardin sweepingly but the proper term is e.g. trådgardin.
According to my etymological dictionary it’s from Latin cortina, same word as curtain. It originally meant kettle or something curved however.
