I picked up a copy of a newish Swedish magazine "Språktidningen" (Language Magazine) the other day. They had an article about some newfangled words in Swedish. Words from the English such as "staycation", a stay-at-home-vacation. And then the word "nanosemester". Semester is the Swedish word for vacation, and nano is a prefix used to denote the millionth part of something.
The magazine defines this as a "very short vacation". Hmm. I smell innumeracy here. Lets have a look. 365 days in a year, so let's be generous and say that a microyear is one-third of a day. One thousandth of a microyear would be a nanoyear. One third of a day is 8 hours, with 60 minutes and 60 seconds for 28800 seconds. Again, being generous, a thousandth of a microyear would be 30 seconds.
So a "vacation" of 30 seconds? Don't blink, or you will miss it.
Another interesting new phrase in Swedish: wikipedifierad sanning (Wikipediafied truth, that is, a truth that is only true in the Wikipedia), printed in Goteborgsposten in February 2010, according to the web site.
The magazine defines this as a "very short vacation". Hmm. I smell innumeracy here. Lets have a look. 365 days in a year, so let's be generous and say that a microyear is one-third of a day. One thousandth of a microyear would be a nanoyear. One third of a day is 8 hours, with 60 minutes and 60 seconds for 28800 seconds. Again, being generous, a thousandth of a microyear would be 30 seconds.
So a "vacation" of 30 seconds? Don't blink, or you will miss it.
Another interesting new phrase in Swedish: wikipedifierad sanning (Wikipediafied truth, that is, a truth that is only true in the Wikipedia), printed in Goteborgsposten in February 2010, according to the web site.
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