Common Expressions

In my Norwegian class one day we learned some common expressions and sayings. After all the work they had us go through to learn the different tenses of verbs, that day we found out that if the verb is obvious, it can just be skipped altogether.




Why in the world would it be okay to leave out a key element in a sentence? The only thing that made sense was something my husband, Kory, told me one time. As a kid, when he sat down at the dinner table, he was required to be silent so his parents could talk. He thought he wasn’t allowed to speak because there must be only so many words that could come out of his mouth in a lifetime, and that he wasn’t supposed to use them all up as a child…. Such is the logic of his young mind, but I have no idea behind the logic in the rule of leaving out the verb.



It’s very weird to hear someone say, “I can Norwegian,” (“Jeg kan norske.”) It’s allowed to leave out the verb “speak” because it’s obvious what goes there (more obvious to some than others, I suppose). So it’s possible to hear people say things like, “I will the store” or “I must to class.” Why not just say “GO” right in there with the sentence, as it’s not a very big word, even in Norwegian? But then, Norwegians are known to be quite the conservers. They don’t even waste a breath, as they often talk while sucking in air.



It’s common when talking to someone, that they make a sound like they just choked on something. They suck in a breath at the same time they say, “Ja” (“yes”). It’s as if what they are agreeing to couldn’t even wait until their next breath was taken and their comment has to come out immediately. I don’t get it, but then I don’t get a lot of things Norwegian - like the expression, “Kan du slå på tråden?” Word for word that is translated as, “Can you hit me with a thread?” or “Can you punch me with a string?” – it could go either way as the words used mean both things. That’s the literal translation, but the meaning is something that could never be guessed: “Can you give me a call?”



I’m sure there are weird English expressions we have as well, but since I’m so used to them they don’t exactly come to mind. “Can you hit me with a thread?” Where do they come up with this stuff?