Much of Pär's English vocabulary came to him initially through reading English-language books as a kid, and his reading material of choice was mostly speculative fiction. So every now and then when he reaches for a word, the one that comes to mind is some archaic high-fantasy term. What's extra fun is that, even after all these years of living in America, he can't always tell the difference.

I was in the mood to go out to eat, so I called him at the office to find out if he'd be up for dinner. "Are you hungry?" I asked.

"For lunch today, I bought a chicken at the supermarket. One of those that they roast on a spit and you can buy it already cooked."

"You ate a whole chicken for lunch?"

"No," he said. "For lunch I only ate the... what are they called. The two thingies. The thews."

"The thews. You ate the chicken thews."

"Yes. The, no! What's the name? Legs? Do you call them legs?"

"Limbs."

"The chicken limbs. No! You don't call them that!"

I relented. "We say legs, or drumsticks. But I like 'thews' best. The mighty thews of the Chicken Warrior rippled and flexed as it hefted its broadsword...."

The other day, Pär, attemping gallantry, tried and failed to come up with a lilting turn of phrase to describe my breasts. After a few stumbling efforts, which I will not repeat here, he gave up.

"Ohhh... Swedes and poetry," he moaned. The poor man is hampered by a culture that values straightforwardness. Swedes tend to call things what they are, and not dress them up with pretty embellishments. Sometimes this becomes a source of amusement to us both.

"That's okay, honey, you have other strengths," I said.

"But really, Swedes do great poetry!" he said. "Grand sweeping epic sagas."

"I know, dear. None of that prissy sissy crap."

"Yes!" He promptly recited from memory, with great drama and feeling, some lines of Swedish.

"'Förruttnelse! hasta, o älskade brud,
att bädda vårt ensliga läger!
Förskjuten av världen, förskjuten av Gud
blott dig till förhoppning jag äger.
Fort, smycka vår kammar - på svartklädda båren
den suckande älskarn din boning skall nå.
Fort, tillred vår brudsäng - med nejlikor våren
skall henne beså.'

"Ohh, that's so beautiful," he sighed. "Do you want to know what it means?"

"Sure!" I said.

"Okay, I'm just asking. Because I've translated this one for you before and you thought it was kind of depressing."

"Most Swedish poetry seems to be," I said. "It's all written by miserable bearded guys sitting in their poor farms in the middle of some endless winter, where life is hard and cold and there's nothing to do but drink and write about it. Or else it's about a ship that sinks and everyone drowns. But go ahead, I want to hear. Translate."

"Okay," Pär began. "Let's see. 'Förruttnelse' means, hm, the process of rotting and decay..."

"Ew! Alright, stop! I get the idea."

"Too late, you're going to hear it now. Basically it goes... 'Decay! make haste, oh bride so beloved, and make the bed of our solitary camp!' -- hmm, it's clearer in the original that 'Decay!' is the author addressing the process of decay, and the 'bride' is the decay itself. -- 'Rejected by the world and rejected by God....'"

Have I mentioned lately that at the core of the Swedish character, there's a certain grimness?