Need a little help with your language please

[giantangryrooster]

I'm Scandinavian, I try my best with your language, but am still bewildered about livingrooms/dens, toilets/loos etc .

But can any of you enlighten me on two words?

Where I'm from we call it summer house, what do you call it... Cottage, holiday home, second home and what is the difference?

Secondly wood/forrest, is a wood smaller? How small, then?
Do you call it wood or woods?

Just confused can you help, please.

[getdownonit]

I love this. My bfriend is Swedish and we have these conversations all the time.

She has a cottage by a lake and it's not the same as a cottage in England at all. But I know what she means when she talks about it!

[iklboo]

OP - there's a lot of regional differences too:

I scranned a chip barm in the ginnel and left the door on the snick

I ate fries on a bread roll in the alleyway and left the door unlocked on the latch.

[sawollya]

Is it ok to say toilet when you are actually referring to THE TOILET?

I say loo as in im going to the loo but id clean the toilet.

Are english people still afraid of the word toilet?
Do you say WC?

[sawollya]

Or lavatory?
Or latrine?!

[eddiemairswife]

And 'cottaging' is nothing to do with thatched houses with roses round the door.

[sawollya]

@ikbloo 🥴😂

[Tanaqui]

What we call a summer house in England is called a lusthus in Sweden! Which makes nice images as to its purpose. In modern estate agents terms it is also sometimes called a garden room. But a summer cottage would be the same as a holiday home!

[sawollya]

A lust house omg you swedes🤣

[iVampire]

‘Is there any possibility your wood is actually a shrubbery?‘

Only if nothing is bigger than a rhododendron

[StrictlyAFemaleFemale]

When I moved to Denmark I Couldnt understand why having a summerhouse was so desirable as they are a pretty shed, right? Nope. Not in Denmark. Holiday home.

[giantangryrooster]

Tanaqui a lust house (lysthus) in Danish is a building in your garden.

Ivampire I have a giant rhododendron in the garden, perhaps I should just forget about the wood and call the lot a shrubbery .

iklboo
I scranned a chip barm in the ginnel and left the door on the snick
Translation please .

Don't get me started on cottaging and dogging, I guess it's to confuse foreigners .

[Unescorted]

The nearest to a Scandinavian summer house is a beach hut. We don't really have what you would call a summer house where you pop up for the weekend, has been in the family for generations, have a bit of land, maybe a sauna and you can sleep. It is one of those concepts that doesn't translate.

Some wealthy people have a weekend cottage / second home / holiday home. If you aren't as wealthy they can be rented out (if you are the owner) or rented (if you are the visitor) which makes them a holiday cottage. Second homes tend to be empty when the owner isn't in residence. A house in the country is a mansion owned by the landed gentry.

A woodland is deciduous and usually smaller that a forest. A forest is evergreen, often state owned and planted for timber production.... unless it is an ancient forest (of primary woodland) dating back to olden times eg Forest of Dean or Forest of Bowland. In which case it is a thing of beauty and should be preserved at all costs.


Loo / lav/ dunny/ toilet/ bathroom/ bog/ shitter/ long drop/ karzy/little girls room/ the stalls/ - all the same. You go there to have a shit. WC (water closet) is a separate room with a toilet and hand wash basin ( not to be confused with a washand basin) but no washing (other than hands) facilities.

[Pelleas]

This is an interesting BBC article about beach huts for anyone not in the UK who might not understand what's meant here by the term:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-45605788

[giantangryrooster]

Pelleas definitely not a beach hut according to the article. It's a normal yet smaller house (bathroom, kitchen etc.) with its own plot of land.

[GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman]

A wood/ the woods/ woodland doesn't have to be deciduous (our local wood is mixed). But it is smaller than a forest. And bigger than a copse, which is not to be confused with a coppice, which may be entirely coppiced or just a part of a bigger wood.

Don't worry, you'll never get the hang of it.

[nocoolnamesleft]

Have we done thickets? And brakes?

[Weedsnseeds1]

I believe not, Nocoolnamesleft, nor stand, chase or holt.

[iklboo]

Are talking becks as well - not the drink?

[Fluffycloudland77]

@sawollya

French used to be spoken by the ruling Norman invaders so became a sign of being posh basically. It carried on until we lost most of France and then we just decided to bitch about them endlessly instead.

[june2007]

A Ha is low lying fog, A HAHA is a sunken wall.

[peajotter]

I can highly recommend a book called “watching the English” by Kate fox. She’s an anthropologist who decided to study her own people. It explains so many of the class based words that I use without even thinking.

As a product of a mixed-class home, I switch my language depending on the company without even noticing it. My front room is sometimes the sitting room but never the living room or lounge.

In Scotland a few lucky souls have huts, which are the equivalent of your summer houses, but they are rare as they were generally built pre-war and off grid. Planning restrictions are too tight to build them nowerdays.

If your holiday house is one of many on the same site, and built of wood, then I’d call it a lodge. It needs to be a few hundred years old to be a cottage. However an old gatehouse cottage is also called a lodge. I hope that clears everything up!! (I’m sure you spotted the sarcasm)

[giantangryrooster]

Oh @peajotter after this thread I feel a little more enlightened, but none the wiser .

[TheCumbrian]

I scranned a chip barm in the ginnel and left the door on the snick

Round my way that would be you had a chip butty downt yard and went yam and left the dooer on the sneck

[Weedsnseeds1]

A chip bap, in the passageway, with the door on the latch hete

[Weedsnseeds1]

Here