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- "Litteratur är verkligen ett …
"Litteratur är verkligen ett smörgåsbord."
Translation:Literature really is a smorgasbord.
28 Comments
I just thought it was a common phrase in English, without thinking where it came from haha. It is used in Australia though
In Bulgaria this is called 'a swedish table' :)) in a party, restaurant, or the food offering on an all inclusive holiday.
Now I understand why it is soo! Because russians could not pronounce this difficult swedish word and begin call it simply "some swedish table" (какойто там шведский стол) :D Actually, I did not know about "smorgasbord" in English!! Very interesting.
I found it hilarious when i first went to NZ that every chinese restaurant has this completely random swedish word on the front :D
So I can tell this is an expression, but I can't tell what the english meaning might be?
It basically means that there is a wide range of literature to choose from. A smörgåsbord is a buffet offering a variety of both cold and hot dishes.
And here was I thinking 'neat, Swedish uses this word in this meaning, too, just like English!'
We don't have the particular word in Romanian, but we do say "Swedish buffet" a whole damn lot, glad to know where it comes from!
COME TO MINNESOTA AND YOU WILL HEAR IT USED IN A VARIETY OF WAYS or a smorgasboard of ways
Food for thought: often when I encounter 'smorgasbord' in English, it is being used in the figurative sense, as in a vast array of or a plethora of X, and not the literal sense of the Swedish buffet.
Although I have heard from my parents and people from older generations in the U.S. that the smörgåsbord (the buffet) was kind of trendy in the 70s and 80s, but those kinds of restaurants have since mostly died out. :(
Speaking of literature, any good recommendations for simple interesting books of Swedish literature to start with ?
I've heard the work smorgasbord to refer to a buffet, but not like anything that someone can take a pick from lol.
"Literature really is an open buffet" should be accepted as a correct answer. That seems to be the meaning that is tried to be conveyed here.
Why can I not use the word "veritable?" This seems like a highly likely word with the same meaning. I have always heard "veritable smorgasbord."
I've heard "veritable smorgasbord" used often, and I agree that the IDEA is the same. But here I think the grammatical structure of the sentence doesn't give us the option for an adjective (i.e. "veritable") -- but only for an adverb, like "really." I suppose one could try "veritably," but that sounds pretty strange in English, to my ear...
Shoutout to Charlotte's web for teaching this generation of English speakers the word smörgåsbord
