Monday, December 22, 2008

A life in bad English


Roof, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

The notorious - but also winner of four Olympic gold medals and five World championship gold medals - Finnish ski jumper Matti Nykänen has given reason to a lot of sayings here in Finland, due to there being a lot of things happening in his life. Nykänen has been in the headlines of tabloid newspapers more often than any other person in Finland.

Nykänen's sayings are extreme forms of yogiisms, difficult to understand even for some of the Finnish. One of the sayings is "Elämä on laiffii", translated as "A life is laiffii", the last word being a mongrel English version of "life". Another similar is "Being alive is a person's best time."

Why such title and introduction? Well, I had to go with one of our children to hospital in the middle of last night, and we had to spend several hours there waiting. Fortunately things turned out well, but we'll have to see how it goes.

This photo shows the entrance roof to the hospital, taken when we were at last going home. A bit of light in the middle of the dark.

In any case, I started to ponder why I'm writing this blog in English instead of Finnish, when many things are for me much more difficult to explain. But I guess there is the possibility that some things may gain additional meaning in the global context, some of those things which would be common for any Finnish reader. Also, I do have an interest in communicating globally, now that it is possible for everyone. And perhaps bad English combined with sometimes good but often bad photos is better than either alone.

3 comments:

Paul said...

Well I, for one, am glad that you are writing in English, as I don't speak a word of Finnish! :-)

Juha Haataja said...

And I'm thankful for being able to discuss things with fellow bloggers such as yourself.

I guess I was quite tired when writing the posting, and formulating thoughts in English was extra hard.

Andreas said...

Haha, well, about 70% of my readers come from the English speaking world. Of course that's due to the fact that I write in English, and I may even lose readers in Austria and Germany, but writing in German, I would never have encountered wonderful people like you. Or Paul. Or so many others.

I think it's a good thing to speak a common language. It does not necessarily prevent wars, but it makes them much less likely. Maybe one day the Internet will be recognized as one of the most effective instruments in the installment of global peace. I only fear it will still take some time.