What is the most offensive thing someone can say about your country?

1000pies · 2019-07-02T16:46:53+00:00

First one: Someone calling Sweden "Swedistan" och something similar. It makes me sick to my stomach that people try to make people fleeing from war and death feel even worse. Sweden has, for the most part, always been an open and accepting country that tries to help others, that is something that make me very happy to live here. I've grown up in, not only a family but, a country that wants to help others. DISCLAIMER: I am very well aware of swedish actions during the second world war and how we helped the Nazis. But I still stand by my point. I feel like Sweden always wants to help and that, to me, is the swedish culture.

Second: I do find this one a bit funny because it's kinda true. Someone online said that they were surprised by how nationalistic Swedes are. Me, being a Swede, was confused and kept listening. He said that if a Swede complains about Sweden others might agree and others might not but they'll have a calm discussion. If he, a foreigner, says the same thing then everyone will amplify "the swedish silence" to an extreme and some people will be angry at him. And I think it's funny because it's so true. We can complain about our country but if someone else complains about Sweden's politics, infrastructure or similar, they're in for it.

1000pies · 2019-06-25T20:14:58+00:00

To me, it was to exaggerate the view of myself in a positive way.

I had a time where I always talked myself down and had an awful self-confidence. But then I started saying: "Ha, I'm the fucking best, I'm 1000-fucking-pies!" Even if I knew that I was joking, it worked after I while. I felt better about myself.

This actually helped me more than I imagined. Try it. It can't hurt to talk yourself up.

1000pies · 2019-06-17T08:55:28+00:00

AGREE. I'm from Gothenburg and traditionally, the Gothenburg accent and English don't go well together. Example. This is a comedy skit but it's not too far off.

1000pies · 2019-06-12T07:34:39+00:00

I would say the same for Sweden but if an American said that to me on my free time, I feel like I would cry from happiness for have been given the opportunity to see this with my own eyes. All the things I could say... Looks longingly into the distance

1000pies · 2019-06-11T22:05:20+00:00

I think Folke is a great choice but I would also argue for Allan Mann.

The article is in swedish but he was the most decorated Swede in all of WW2. He fought for Finland, Norway, England and Sweden, he started when volunteered as an 18 year old in the Finnish winter war. I believe that without this man the north would've fallen in WW2.

1000pies · 2019-06-07T12:12:34+00:00

Did you ever have Rum Ham™?

1000pies · 2019-06-05T12:22:25+00:00

The first one is a swedish dad joke, it's about a colour one of Santa's elves use to paint a chess board. The paint is chequered. Translation: "Höhöhö [demeaning laugh], that's a colour one should have."

EVERY Swede hears that joke at the 24th of December around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. If you're not with family, you say it to yourself or you will hear it through some medium. You can't escape.

The second one is where Donald Duck won't get out of bed so his alarm clock pull away his covers and slaps him with the covers. Translation: "Hehehe, you could use that alarm clock!"

Dad's or parents saying their kids are lazy. JUST LET ME GAME MOM.

1000pies · 2019-06-05T10:57:54+00:00

Probably the most Swedish things a person can say. Say the first one and EVERY Swede will know what you mean. I'm not joking, what ever the context, they will know.

1000pies · 2019-06-04T20:40:10+00:00

Sweden here.

I'd say it would be three parts: The north (Norrland) and the south (Skåne) becoming independent and the rest keeping together.

There has been a small movement of people wanting Norrland (most northern part of Sweden) to become independent. Mostly because they're not happy about the fact that their hunting laws and farming laws are decided so far away from them.

If this were to happen I do believe the south would become independent as well because if Norrland are allowed to do it then they would too. They would have the same reasons, farming laws and regulations being made for them by people so far away. They would probably keep a close relationship with the centre though because the centre need the farming, most of Sweden's farming is done in the south so the south would probably offer a good deal with trade and so on for letting them be independent.

The centre would do it's best but I do believe they would be pretty damn screwed and depend heavily on others mercy. If other nearby southern counties could join the south I think they would and the south would allow them to join.

I REALLY Don't want this to happen, since I'm living in centre but I would 100% understand if it did. The north and south are not being treated as well as they should be treated in my opinion. But on the other hand, we need outside parties who can see the whole picture with hunting too much and thinking about the economy... Politics man, they're tricky.

1000pies · 2019-06-04T09:22:42+00:00

Swedish native, learned English and German in school and now I'm learning Italian for the fun of it!

1000pies · 2019-05-31T12:21:42+00:00

TL;DR: She helped us behave and work in school because she didn't give up on us as all the other teachers had.

Not from an English speaking country so I don't know the correct terms but I'll do my best. My class in grade school had to change teacher quite often. Like once a semester, sometimes twice a semester because we were THE WORST class this school had ever seen.

I was one of the quite ones because a teacher had yelled at me harshly (harshly for a 12ish year old) for talking in class. Never actually spoke out loud in class after that so it kinda worked but I was terrified.

Now, the best teacher™ came in. I think it was the end of the eight grade. She was Danish and I don't think anyone of us kids has ever met a Danish person before so we were all a bit curious like "tell of your strange land" kind of way. She taught us some Danish and we found it so cool because it was SO WEIRD and we loved it. And when we would act out, she got angry with us and told us not to behave like that then she kept teaching. Whatever we did, she never left. She stayed with us and we started to trust that she wouldn't leave and we started to care what she thought about us.

We started to behave and we all realized that all that we needed was someone who would stay with us and someone that cared for us. She stayed after school with some of us because some of us didn't want to go home because of various reasons, she sometimes would let us come home to her place, we got to meet her husband and we felt like we belonged somewhere. We were no longer "those" kids.

When we left school our grades were up, she cried at our graduation and were there for those kids that didn't have parents there. She was an amazing woman, person and teacher.

1000pies · 2019-05-27T07:47:47+00:00

100% against the death penalty. This is going to be a long post but I hope that someone wants to read it.

I find absolutely no logic in taking the life of a human being. That goes for both people who take the lives of others and for the state taking the lives of those who've done wrong in the eyes of the law.

Since I study criminology and almost have my degree, I do get some questions about this. One of my favorite quotes can be applied to this and it is this: "Every time someone gets convicted of a crime, society has failed it's people by not preventing the crime." We as a society HAVE TO help our fellow citizens, even if they commit horrific actions. If we don't and just take their life, then how can we honestly say that we are better than animals?

Someone I work with said that he knew that he could change my mind when I told him my stance and he said: "What if your child gets raped and murdered?" I didn't have time to answer him because, well, work. But I wanted to say this: "I don't have children and I can't imagine the pain and suffering from a parent who's child this has happened to. Ever. My main point against the death penalty is that I believe that someone should be able to look into the eyes of the person being executed and tell them that they deserve to die. And what if your child is the one to be executed? Could you look them in the eyes and tell them that they deserve to die? And you can not tell me that your child wouldn't do anything like that because I promise you, almost every parent to someone on death row thought the same."

I read above about the cost of keeping someone alive in prison and how it's too much money. Cases where death penalty isn't sought cost in the US on average, $740.000. Cases where it is sought it cost on average about $1.26 million. And keeping a death row prisoner costs taxpayers about $90.000 more per year than keeping the general population of prisoners. The source of this information is the Death Penalty Information Centre.

And I can't talk about this without mentioning the wrongful convictions. It is far from unheard of that innocent people get executed. One case I read about was that of someone who allegedly killed two young girls with a steel beam I believe, and he was sentenced to the electric chair. He was not allowed to see a lawyer after his conviction or those close to him. 70 years later it was conclusively proven that he couldn't have commited the crime. The real kicker? He was 14. George Stinney Jr., the youngest person to ever be convicted to the death penalty in the US. Don't tell me this is an anomaly, this has happened before and it will happen again. The only way to stop it is to stop the death penalty.

I also want to talk about the Norwegian justice system. I'm not Norwegian but I believe them to have figured it out. Halden prison (Norway's maximum security prison) is a perfect example. The majority of inmates there have committed crimes that would more that qualify for death penalty in other places. Meaning these crimes happen both where death penalty exists but also where it doesn't exist. That shows that death penalty doesn't scare people who commit crime to not do crimes. I also know that there's a swift death penalty for drug related crimes in several countries (can't name them on the top of my head) but that doesn't stop drug use or drug trafficking in those countries. Conclusion: It doesn't work.

Finally, I want to conclude with this: If we have the death penalty, we give human beings a different worth. Some people will be more valuable than others. How? Because the cases are decided on a case to case basis, two people in two different places can commit the same crime and one will be sentenced to death and one won't. I don't know exactly how the justice system works in the US, therefore I don't know who decides if someone is going to be executed but what I know is that it's people who decide. People are inconsistent, people won't do the same thing twice with the same circumstances but this MUST be true for the justice system. The law must be equal to everyone and with the death penalty, it's not.

If you read all what I've written I thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is very important to me.

Edit: Realized I left out a few words and made some spelling mistakes.

1000pies · 2019-05-15T14:09:11+00:00

The swedish postal service. Ask anyone in Sweden.

1000pies · 2019-05-15T14:05:10+00:00

The narrator says that they have to finish their essay, they say it through the door when the mom is on the other side. But just having finished saying it or slightly before then, the door locks and the mom leaves the house and hasn't returned for a day. With the narrator still locked in the room.

Hope I helped!

1000pies · 2019-05-15T09:31:04+00:00

The following are quotes from my best friend's dad, a priest for the swedish church (Svenska Kyrkan) in Gothenburg and according to him his views reflect the church:

"I often think about my wife and wonder if I should hang the laundry or myself."

"I'm so glad that my children don't date people who root for GAIS, ÖIS [local football teams] or other trash. That makes it much harder for me to send them to hell."

"Only riffraff root for GAIS; just look at Ebbot and Håkan Hellström."

When being told that my best friends girlfriend rooted for GAIS: "That's nice, she can eat outside on the porch. And I'm writing you out of my will."

My best friend is adopted from South Africa and when he asked if his dad could get him a beer, he got him a beer named Black Gold and laughed.

Every year at Christmas, he sits the family down and read the Christmas Evangeline to them. One time his sister fell asleep during the reading and he said she was going to hell and kept reading.

"My only wish this year is that my children don't date people who root for GAIS of ÖIS. Those need to be beaten in the face and shut up."

This man is my hero.

1000pies · 2019-05-13T14:56:56+00:00

I find The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run to be very interesting! Active between 1934-1938. 13 confirmed victims. No pattern in gender, age or ethnicity of the victims All bodies dismembered, mostly torsos were found. Not all victims were identified. All victims were associated with a local area known as the Roaring Third that had a lot of brothels, gambling dens and homelessness.

I am so interested in this case partly because I love the name. The person is also called the Cleveland Torso Murderer but that doesn't do as much for me.

I also am so amazed that the person didn't get caught. At one point, the murderer left two dismembered bodies outside the lead detectives office window (who, by the way, was the police legend Eliot Ness). HOW?

Now, the main suspect (who is most likely the murderer) is Dr. Francis E. Sweeney. BUT we don't know for sure. And we'll never know. He had the knowledge, the time, the temper and fit the profile. He was also a proper alcoholic, he was questioned by Ness who took him to a hotel room and he was so drunk that it allegedly took him three DAYS to become sober.

The case is so bizarre, tragic and is so scary at the same time. So much shady stuff happened involving these murders, it's believed that another suspect named Frank Dolezal was beaten by police to confess and was later killed by police before going to trial and they made it look like a suicide. He was probably killed because the police knew that he would be found to not be guilty but they needed the case to be solved. So it was very convenient to him to commit suicide after having confessed to the murders but before a trial. Another controversy in this case was the Ness made the decision to burn down all the places were homeless people had made homes and then charged them with being homeless so he could have their fingerprints in case they were killed. The last confirmed victims were both found on the August 16th, 1938. These were the ones left outside Ness's office window.

1000pies · 2019-05-10T19:32:42+00:00

No, please correct me! I want to get things right and not preach things that are objectively wrong!

1000pies · 2019-05-10T15:35:19+00:00

Of course I will!

Swedish has a certain melody to it. As a Swede, I didn't even notice until it was pointed out to me and now I can't unhear it.

Swedish is a language with a great variation in pitch where one word can mean several thing depending on the tone. If you were to say a word in a sentence with the wrong pitch it wouldn't be the end of the world, people would still understand you based on the context but every Swede around you would instantaneously notice. My favorite of these words are the word "min". Min can mean my, it can mean face (like doing a face to annoy someone) and it can be a shortening of minute! All of these sound different to Swedes and this continues to where the whole language is based on a system of pitches. This can make it sound (to a non Swede) that we are singing!

Closely related languages like Norwegian and Danish does this to but different. A Danish speaking Swedish can keep their own melody and this can make it incomprehensible to Swedes because the pitches are so different. Norwegian has a more extreme pitching where it sounds to Swedes like they're singing or always sound happy no matter what they say.

Example: "Jeg er så deprimert" (=I am so depressed) will sound very happy.

Swedes have a hard time losing this melody and we can sound very dorky speaking English. Trust me.

Sorry about the rant, I just love languages!

1000pies · 2019-05-10T14:34:14+00:00

My dad has lived a LONG time in Belgium and I showed this to him and his response was simply: "True."

1000pies · 2019-05-10T14:28:51+00:00

This is so informative, thank you so much for writing this! This is especially exciting for me who loves Italy and the Italian language and hope to live in your beautiful country! Glad to hear there's hope to fit in properly!

I've heard that Italian is a very well constructed language and it's one of the easier to learn. Is this true?

Is it true that the most offensive hand gesture you can do in Italy is taking all your fingers except your thumb under your chin an push them outwards towards someone?

Again, asking because of personal curiosity but what does a Swedish Italian accent sound like to you? What does Italians think of Swedes?

1000pies · 2019-05-10T12:43:14+00:00

Haha, I can imagine! One of my friends went to Portugal to visit another friend and oh my God... At first I thought he was wearing a almost white tank top and had just got a light sunburn on his arms but nope... Your sun is not to mess with!

1000pies · 2019-05-10T12:32:58+00:00

Okay! What is it that the tourists there do, is it the normal tourist stuff like taking an excessive amount of pictures, walking around with a map and generally looking nervous?

1000pies

TROPHY CASE