There is an actually town in Sweden, in the far north, called Fitträsk (Cunt Swamp). Kukträsk is fictive.
In regards to Maria’s dialect being spelled out. I’m going to go back and change the pages where she should have had the dialect. Many of you have guessed right, in that she drops the accent the longer she lives in Stockholm.
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AppearancesMarch 20-22Webcomics Weekend March 28 UK Webcomix Thing April 23-26 SPX 09 Stockholm |
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August 24th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
I adore the timing on the last two panels.
Maria’s nerves are very familiar to what I’m going through at the minute.. Poor thing.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
sofi isnt soooo bad
August 24th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
i love ander’s expression in those last two panels!
August 24th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
hahahahaha anders reaction is epic XD
August 24th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
OMG… is Anders wearing a Pixies hoodie? Just when I thought i couldn’t love A<3M any more….
August 24th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I think people want Sofi to be bad so that they can feel good when Anders leaves her. I don’t think she is though. She’s naturally going to be a little bit on the defensive when her boyfriend is suddenly hanging out so much with a new girl.
In regards to Maria’s accent, I love it. I never have to read a line twice to get its meaning. But then, I’ve always been good at reading and figuring words from context.
August 24th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
It is atleast not Kvikkjokk! HaHa!
August 24th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
hmmm I like Sofi.
Man, I love this comic.
August 24th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
…what doe Kukträsk mean?
August 24th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
I agree with Mike. I really like “hearing” Maria’s accent when she was younger. It really adds a new dimension to her character. Being from a southern state in the US and having gone to school in the north, I relate completely!
It is nice to see a kind side to Sofi as well. Very in keeping with all the characters actually. None are simply “good” or “bad;” that’s one of the things that makes this comic so wonderful!
Love the 4th panel! I can hear the crickets chirping .. hee.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Whoa…Sofi is really nice here. I didn’t really like her at all in the last strip, so this is a pleasant surprise. I think she is pretty good.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Cock Swamp. Lawlz.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:27 am
Awkward silence.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:37 am
My grandmother wasa born in a town called “Buzzerd bay” next to a lake everybody called “The Bass Hole” I can relate.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:44 am
Haha…Cock Swamp. Brilliant. Also, I’m loving how you’re using the accent for Maria. It’s especially effective in this strip accentuating (pun!) her being an outsider. Pixies Rule!
August 25th, 2009 at 1:00 am
Still loving Maria’s accent. We have a village a few miles away called Skidby and that means something like Shit-farm… I think it’s a nicer place now than when it got its name!
These characters are spot-on – that is to say, I remember people behaving just like this when I was at art college years ago… the kids at the youth club I managed who were at art college were sometimes like this, and yes, as I am planning to return in the next year or so, I bet there will be exactly the same behaviours and I bet it’s the same all over the world! So well observed
August 25th, 2009 at 1:18 am
I live in B.C., Canada, and reading this strip I frequently feel like there are probably a lot of parallels between Canada and Sweden. Anyways, just thought I’d pipe up and say that I’m surprised no one’s mentioned ‘Dildo, Newfoundland’ yet. Poor newfies.. I’m kinda picturing Maria as a newfie..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dildo,_Newfoundland_and_Labrador
August 25th, 2009 at 1:22 am
Oh man–I fucking love Anders in those last two panels.
And you know–seeing it in context, especially with the way the others treat her, Maria’s accent being spelled out is making more and more sense.
…I would love to live in Cuntswamp, or at least send a post card from there. How the hell did it get a name like that?
August 25th, 2009 at 1:38 am
I think that name is pretty old, from a time when the word “fitta” meant something else. There’s a swedish linguist and comedian named Fredrik Lindström who has written a few books on language for a lay audience. In one of these he talks about the origin of the word “fitta”. I don’t remember what if any conclusion he comes to, but he does write about a theory that it originally meant something like “wet field”, which I guess would be a rather nice and poetic way to discribe the female genetalia.
August 25th, 2009 at 1:44 am
I used to goto Blueball Elementary.
Unsurprisingly, Blueball was not far from Virginville
August 25th, 2009 at 2:16 am
I come from a really small town (now formerly, thank god) known Cheesecock, so I definitely sympathize. I always used to hate when people would ask me where I was from.
August 25th, 2009 at 2:26 am
Anders. -pause- … -sips drink-
That would be a fantastic place to live.
August 25th, 2009 at 2:39 am
The word for cunt in swedish also means ‘moist meadow’.
So Fitt-träsk (cunt swamp) simply refers to it being a moist/damp place.
BTW HaHHaHhah, Jag älskar’t Rene! Minerna! XD
August 25th, 2009 at 2:43 am
@ kateserious:
“Skid” in swedish means ski. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski
“Skid” in danish means shit.
“By” on both swedish and danish means village.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Well, I live near the towns of “Blue Ball,” “Intercourse,” “Bird In Hand,” and “Paradise.” Bless the PA Dutch.
And if you turn off at Intercourse, you get to Blue Ball. Straight on through you’ll end up in Paradise.
August 25th, 2009 at 7:07 am
oh boy.
im actually from the town of Cochrane in Alberta, Canada..
..which is wonderfully right next to the even smaller town of Balzac.
not even joking. (west and north of Calgary)
August 25th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Ah, first time I’ve ever posted but I have to say I love this comic with all of my itty bitty heart. I adore Maria and I actually will join in with those who like Maria’s accent being written out.
I can relate to how she’s feeling too. Being a Newfie (Canadian from the Province of Newfoundland) and living in Toronto, man, talk about feeling like a fish out of water! My accent didn’t last long though (I pick up accents really quickly so I lost my Newfie one – except for the odd word or phrase here and there).
There’s also a community in Newfoundland called Dildo. Yup. And they don’t want to change it. Then there’s Come-by-Chance…and many, many others with very odd names.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Fitta in Swedish (original meaning) is “wet area”, like a bog or a swamp…
August 25th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Haha… I’m loving the guy with the eyebrows. Even his nose is excessively curly!
August 25th, 2009 at 10:39 am
My Apologies to @Frida Ulvegren re. the name Skidby, in Modern C20 & C21 UK English we are given more than one translation of old Norse/old Danish settlement names, so “by” to etymologists variously means “farm, farmstead/ settlement”, we can only know by discovering the archaeology from the time of its foundation. A bit similar to the “moist meadow /wet area” origins of “fitta”perhaps where a word has lost or changed meaning over time?
The area was under the Danelaw from C9-C11 so many places have names of old Danish & later Norse origin, often confusingly mixed in with or alongside earlier Anglo-Saxon placenames… There is another local town called Scunthorpe which at one time would not show up in internet searches and where kids regularly vandalise the roadsigns so they read… well you can guess! It means Scunna’s village/estate/land/field…
Skid in modern English means of course to slip or slide, but “skids” is also UK slang for men’s underwear, I guess there’s a lot more Danish in our language than we realise
August 25th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Hi first time I post here and just have to say that I love this comic.
Now as far as the dialect goes I must say I like it alot.
I don’t know if this helps nonswedish people but here you can listen to an example of “norrländska” and an example of “stockholmska”:
Norrländska
http://swedia.ling.gu.se/Ljud/Norrland/Vasterbotten/Burtrask/bur_yw.mp3
Stockholmska
http://swedia.ling.gu.se/Ljud/Svealand/Uppland/Villberga/vil_yw_1i.mp3
Since there are tons of different swedish dialects I’m not sure that this particular “norrländska” was what Rene was aiming at.
In my head Marias dialect sounds just like the Minnesota dialect (probably since I know that Minnesota has alot of swedish and norwegian ancestry).
This dialect is portrayed in Coen brothers “Fargo”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy2HfixB9_8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkqbGuVLC2Q&feature=related
I realise that the dialect in the movie is exaggerated but that’s how i read Marias bubbles anyway.
August 25th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I think “Kukträsk” should translate into “Cocklake” as the word träsk translates into lake in northern Sweden. (Northern as in northern parts of Norrland and not northern as in north of Uppsala
Also – awesome comic!
August 25th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
@Teri I’m also from Newfoundland!
Anyways. The first thing this strip made me think of was the town of Dildo in Newfoundland. A friend of mine once saw a sign with a long white arrow under the word “Dildo” and busted laughing. He thought the arrow looked rather like a penis. With that he decided that he was going to saw the sign off its post and hang it in his room. Later that night, he did.
Why are so many town names so odd? Heheh.
August 25th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
So we’ve heard about “Dildo” a bunch of times in these comments… what about the town “Fucking?” It’s in Austria.
They have even taken special measures to secure their signposts, because they kept getting stolen.
There are also the towns “Kissing” and “Petting” in Germany as well as a town called “Drogen” which translates to drugs.
Oh and in the Netherlands there is a town called “Sexbierum” No kidding.
August 25th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
@KateSerious: hehe, and skidmarks in ones underware…isn’t that..? hehehe ^^
August 25th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Don´t forget the french town “Kondom”
August 25th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
@Dead_Prophet: You must be from Lancaster County in PA. There’s also a place called Intercourse there, right? XD
August 25th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Why is dialect being said in place of accent?
August 25th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
i feel like im missing something. Sophie seems to be nicer all of a sudden, but why? the last couple comics she came off as very rude to maria, but suddenly she just isnt?
August 25th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
@Abby
Well Anders has just given her a look in the previous comic so she’s probably trying to be less of a bitch now.
I’m not even saying she’s pretending.
If I was irrationally jealous at someone and my boyfriend looked at me like that, I’d rethink my attitude and the validity of my behaviour as well.
Maybe Anders reaction just made her realize that she was acting like an asshole.
August 25th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Look at the poncy way Anders holds his cup of tea/coffee. No wonder Maria’s brother found him so annoying at the start.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:08 am
why everybody’s calling Anders Sophie’s boyfriend?
just because they had some fun in the darkroom and go drink coffee together?
August 26th, 2009 at 2:44 am
WhisperALullaby: Don’t forget about Mount Joy.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:41 am
So that means Anders was banished to Cock Swamp then. I remember he was all like “NOOOOO” I don’t wnat to go. We thought it was just Maria’s family he wanted to avoid.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:39 am
Tim Jarrett: My boyfriend lives right by there. I’m in Harrisburg currently. Missing Lancaster county something terrible. Which is odd since I’m originally a Philly gal that gets teased for saying “wooder.”
My last name’s also Cox, and I’m a middle school teacher. Imagine how the kiddos love that.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Hahaha, poor Maria! I’ve never lived anyplace with such a horrible name, but I did spend some time in Sheboygan, which people not from the midwest tend to find hilarious. I also recall that while I was living in PA there was a town not far from our house in the Pocono-boonies called “Wawayonda” pronounced WAY-WAY-YONDAH (yonder).
@WhisperALullaby: One of my (male) friends in middle school’s initials were BJ, and a (female) friend in high school whose initials were VD. Unfortunate on both counts.
I like Sofi! This is at least partly because my dog is named Sofie. But she seems nice! Anders might just have commitment/emotional-sexual relationship issues, he’s a bit of a douche but not too actively an ass. But that’s just my 2c. I kind of like all the characters.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Btw:
Accent – Phonetics, ie toMAYto toMAHto
Dialect – Accent + grammar & vocabulary, ie “Ah ain’t know” vs “I dinna knuw”
Arnold Schwarzenegger has an Austrian accent.
Boston English is a dialect.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:04 am
It’s actually so fun to say Maria’s lines in a Geordie (Newcastle) accent.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Teri from Newfoundland, you’re not from the Invasion Crew, are you?
August 26th, 2009 at 8:52 am
@WhisperALullaby
I miss PA in general. I miss sweet bologna, birch beer, and looking for mutations along the Susquehanna (I lived in Columbia a while… I’m reasonably certain I saw a severed human arm floating down there once)
August 26th, 2009 at 9:33 am
And just like that you make Sofi likable :p
August 26th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
@WhisperALullaby wouldn’t your students rather be happy about making references to Scrubs?
We all love Dr. Cox.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
@arthy catkin: They’re inner city kids….they don’t know Scrubs. They just know that my name sounds hysterical. I’ve told them to call me Miss C if they have a problem. If I ever get married….I am ditching my maiden name so fast.
@Dead_Prophet: I truly don’t want to live somewhere else, I think I’d miss PA too much. And it never gets old seeing the Amish. Really doesn’t. I had a birch beer at Knoebel’s the other day….where else do amusement parks serve birch beer? So good. And the mutations don’t surprise me. We’re in the Three Mile Island radius here…worse I’ve gotten is a dead bird on my balcony. And no, it didn’t have three wings. Bet you miss Fastnacht day too!
August 26th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
what what what?? I need more!!!!!!!!
love love love love love the comic. anders is a cunt, but a nice kind. maria is a brat, but she’s good at it.
more more more more
I just read the whole thing start to… well I’m not going to say start to finish now am i?
August 26th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
@WhisperALullaby: There was a girl at my school with the surname Dixon-Cox. I think her parents didn’t think that one through…
August 26th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Heh, there’s all kinds of really charmingly named villages/towns all over the world. In the vicinity of the city I live, two come to mind: the first one is called Pitoreal which Literally means “Royal dick” and the second one is called Cuchillo Parado and makes an allure to erections.
Also, PIXIES!
August 26th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Det här är så mycket igenkänningsfaktor att jag nästan blir moloken ^^;
August 27th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
The phonetics of Marias speech sound like the Newcastle (united Kingdom – below Scotland) accent, exactly…
August 28th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
…and Placentia, Nfld.
[Always makes me think of "placenta"]
I love Maria’s accent Rene!
August 31st, 2009 at 11:26 am
I understand the defination of both words Genevive, but what is presented looks like phonetic script, and is being refered to as a dialect. If Maria were to write down what she was saying, would it really be ‘Aha doonat think ahl ava fit in’? I come from a country with very thick regional accents, so much so that its hard to tell what certain people are saying. But when written, its just plain English. Albiet poor English quite often.
September 18th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Heh…Anders has two fingers up to sip his espresso!
May 29th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
it might be worth noting that the word “Träsk”, especially as it is used in the names of northern towns and villages, can also mean “lake”
Not so sure about the “fitt” part, but I assume there’s an explanation behind that too