A very off-topic mail about Chinese and Swedish

[Olaf Solstrand]

DEAR Sigvald...

1. You're complaining that a Norwegian/Italian book published in Norway did
have character translations in Greek and Arab, and not in Swedish and
Finnish. My guess is that the Swedish and Finnish redactions had nothing to
do with that at all, and that it is 100% WRONG blaming Swedes and Finns for
this.

2. Another guess of mine - this list was written by Italians, and the
Norwegian names was added just so that we also could enjoy it.

3. You are complaining about the contents of ONE specific book. I know for
sure that other publications had these names in the Scandinavian languages.

4. You wrote:
> Well let me just tell all Swedes this: for Norwegian and I bet
> also Danish readers of any age, Asian "rubble" is definitely *not*
> as interesting as Swedish names!

You can't say that - you haven't checked. You're saying that this is not as
interesting as the Swedish names ON BEHALF OF THE ENTIRE NORWEGIAN
POPULATION. You're saying things you have no foundation to say. I'm a
Norwegian, and you sure have not asked ME what I think of this.How many
other Norwegians have you asked?

5. I must confess - I liked these foreign languages. As someone said,
distant languages are exotic. OK, I was not able to pronounce Mickey in
Japanese - but I sure had a good time practicing writing it! :-) (and at
that point the Swedish was no challenge at all... it was just an
M-U-S-S-E-space-P-I-G-G!)

6. You wrote to Christina:
> Sorry, I didn't intend to be offensive.

Really?? In your mail, you said that Swedes "should clean their own house
before taking care of other people's business" because of something a
Norwegian or Italian redaction did 25 years ago. You called languages like
Japanese and Arabic "rubble" that Norwegians can't understand "a shit out
of". Sigvald, if your mail was ANYTHING, it was offensive!

7. You ended your letter with
> Anyway, now in the internet-age we Norwegians, Danes and everybody
> else can easily find any Swedish Disney Character name we are looking
> for, so you Swedes can feel free to concentrate on Chinese or whatever
> Disney Character names you like.

...so why did you write this at all?




Olaf the Blue