sindre-almost

Yesterday I overheard a conversation on a nearby table, as I was sitting quietly having a pint and reading a book. There was a mix of languages spoken at the table; Norwegian, English and possibly Dutch. And those whom I suspect was native Norwegians was trying to translate and describe the meaning of “Rølp” and the adjective use of harry; used without capitalization of course. She said this with such an emphasis that one might suspect that someone around that table was actually named Harry, with proper capitalization, makes all the difference in the world.

When I overheard this I instinctively looked up from my book and tried to come up with a description or translation myself. I failed, even The Oxford Dictionary of English and its accompanying thesaurus was of little help. So resources at hand where then reduced to asking the inhabitants of Twitter. A few seconds after my tweeting-question I got a few suggestions. But first I will quote what I wrote yesterday while trying without help to describe these rather strange Norwegian words and their meaning.

Rølp is the behavioral traits of a hick that become overly prominent whilst he or she is drunk, however this state is not generally restricted to hicks, it can also apply to more urbanized people as it were…..

I should have added that rølp is also used to describe certain situations, but this particularity escaped me in my moment of mental gymnastics. What I did contemplate on was the word hick (or pl. hicks) after again consulting the Oxford Dictionary of English (hereafter called Odie) this is what I found:

Informal, chiefly N. Amer. a person who lives in the country, regarded as being unintelligent or parochial: [as modifier] she puts on a hick accent.

Chiefly Northern-American… this might imply that not everyone has a conception of what a “hick” is. I drifted of for a bit I thought of a mysterious person asking:

“What the heck is a hick?”

A sharp laughter for someone brought me back and I figured anyone wondering what a “hick” is could either look it up or be left wandering about it.

As all this transpired in my head small radio waves was flying through the air looking for their intended target. They found their target as a muffled beep from my mobile phone escaped from under the scattered items on the table. Two moleskin notebooks, a headset and the book I was reading before the events I am now recounting transpired. The muffled beeps where trying to tell me that a response had been received on Twitter.

karinargh@sindrealmost uhh harry kan kanskje ‘oversettes’ til chav i noen sammenhenger vaffal? rølp, uh, debauchery! …

KristineKaizer@sindrealmost chav og corny?

So there seemed to be a consensus on “chav” for the Norwegian adjective use of “harry”

Odie agreed, chav it said was an informal noun of British origin, derogatory a young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of (real or imitation) designer clothes.

This sees to be as close to a one-word translation as I could hope. I had thus used the last thirty or forty minutes to expand my English vocabulary by one word. However I think it was a good one, the other one rølp still eludes me neither debauchery nor corny seems to cover the extensive meaning of the Norwegian word rølp.

After thinking about this for a while, I sighed and returned to the world of T.S. Spivet and his great train ride from Montana to Washington D.C. in a winnebago named Valero (the winnebago was transported by train.) And before I knew, my pint was empty the sun had set, replaced by a dark sky and rain… I took it as a sign to seek out the warm comforts of my bed.

If you have a clever thought on how to describe or translate “rølp” in English please leave a comment or send me a tweet (@sindrealmost)