"Litteratur är verkligen ett smörgåsbord."
Translation:Literature really is a smorgasbord.
37 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.
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!'
I am not a native speaker of English, but I don't think that the use of 'smorgasbord' in English has any real regional boundaries.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/smorgasbord
Just curious. I've worked in catering before and every British person I've met has always referred to it as 'buffet'.
For us (in the states) smorgasbord just means a conglomeration of different things stuffed and assembled together, indicating a wide variety. Almost like saying 'a wide array"
This word might be a bit bookish (in the culinary sense) and just not as common in everyday speech.
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!
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. :(
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...
COME TO MINNESOTA AND YOU WILL HEAR IT USED IN A VARIETY OF WAYS or a smorgasboard of ways
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.
Shoutout to Charlotte's web for teaching this generation of English speakers the word smörgåsbord
Never, ever heard of it in my almost 20 years of speaking English. Great to learn some English from Duolingo too.
I think I learned the word smorgasbord before the word buffet. Buffet is definitely more commonly use across Canada, but smorgasbord is still in circulation. Not every English speaker here knows the word smorgasbord and fewer still would know it's Swedish. Although the word is still found on signs and in restaurants, using the word smorgasbord would be pretentious in many situations. I think the reason why it sticks around is because it's unusual and fun to say :)
I've spoken English for over 70 years and I've never heard it. I'm English.
I used "feast" (even though my instinct was to write smorgasbord) because I thought they were looking for an English word.
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I remember 60 years ago in Wisconsin we used the word 'smorgasbord', and everyone knew what it was. Of course, there were Swedish immigrants in that area ...
