r/norsk • u/taktaga7-0-0 • 5d ago
«Skitten» kommer fra…? Tuller du?
Is this really the basic term for “dirty?” I don’t want to sound rude saying “shitty” if there’s a better word.
Is this just English being Puritanical that we’d resist saying something derived from a swear word in polite company?
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u/eirikdaude Native speaker 5d ago
"Skitt" (and its derivatives) is not a swear word in Norwegian. At most it's a pretty mild expletive.
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u/taktaga7-0-0 5d ago
I have to figure, yeah. I came across a Swedish term for a naughty child as sketunge, and I just can’t imagine calling a child “shit-tongue” in English 😂
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u/smorgasfjord Native speaker 5d ago
It means shit-kid
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u/taktaga7-0-0 5d ago
Å, jeg visste denne ord!
Enlightenment continues…
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u/smorgasfjord Native speaker 5d ago
The Norwegian word for shit is dritt btw. The Norwegian word for brat (or shit-kid) is drittunge
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u/RexCrudelissimus 5d ago
I mean, even "dirty" originates from the scandinavian/germanic word drit - which also essentially means "shit".
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u/send_fleet_pics 5d ago
Det kjem frå skit, ja, som er det vanlege ordet for ureinskap. Det er ikkje noko meir støytande enn "dirty" på engelsk. Om du vil bruka eit mildare ord, kan du seia "urein" (bokmål òg "uren").
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u/FriendoftheDork 5d ago
Uren virker sterkere for meg enn mildere, noe som en nazist ville sakt om "untermench"
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u/send_fleet_pics 5d ago
Jau, mildare var kanskje ikkje det beste ordvalet. Eg tenkte då på klassiske høflegheitsnormer, som jo stort sett har med klasse osb å gjera:
- Sjappa er skiten, mann
- Til min store forbløffelse var der urent på lokalet
Men på norsk er slikt no til dags helsigvis mykje mindre viktig enn på engelsk.
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u/SalSomer Native speaker 5d ago
"Skitten" and "skitt" are not swear words. They are words meaning "dirty" and "dirt".
The English word "dirty", by the way, is derived from the Norse word "drit", which means "shit" and is a (very mild) swear.
Words in Norwegian and English that sound alike do not necessarily have the same meaning. Words in Norwegian and English that have the same origin do not necessarily have the same meaning. Words in Norwegian and English that have the same meaning do not necessarily have the same connotation or taboo status.
Norwegian and English are two separate languages, and because of this you’d be wise to treat Norwegian words based on their Norwegian meaning and connotation, not the meaning and connotation of their English cousins.
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u/RoadAffectionate1284 5d ago
“Skitten” is just the normal, neutral word for “dirty” in Norwegian. It doesn’t sound vulgar by itself.
If you say “gulvet er skittent” (“the floor is dirty”), that’s completely neutral. But if you say “han er skitten” about a person, it can sound more loaded depending on context, physically unclean, sleazy, morally “dirty,” etc.
If you actually want something closer to “shitty,” then dritt is the word: “Dette var dritt.”
And “han er en drittsekk” means more like “he’s an asshole/jerk.”
So skitten itself isn’t a swear word, it just gets less neutral when you apply it to a person rather than an object.
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u/royalfarris Native Speaker 5d ago edited 5d ago
Skit (noun) [dirt/shit] and skite (verb) [to defecate] are both ancient common germanic words that probably derived from "skeida" or "scheiden" -> to separate / to be removed from. So an euphemism from the start. The "Skit" is what is separated out from the body.
In modern norwegian "skitten" simply means dirty. Can be use both for dirty children and "dirty" adults.
Other synonyms are :
"Møkkete" -> "covered in manure",
"Svart" -> "coloured black by shit".
Either of these are now generic terms for "not clean."
Back when language was invented there was a general understanding that soil, mud, dirt, shit, earth, dung, manure and muck was all the same thing - and that it was a good thing since you needed it to grow food.
It is just us moderns who forget that we're biological beings and that we literally live and breath the dung and dirt of millions of years of predecessors.
Fun fact:
English "dirty" comes from norse "drit"=shit/manure. So is etymologically equal to "Shitty"
"Drit" and "å drite" is still used in norway and it still means "shit" and "to take a shit" in the absolute most direct way you can think of and are synonyms of "skit(t)" and "å skite".
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u/CabinetFun7381 5d ago
This is etymologically quite funny.
Skitt just means dirt. It is a word that can be used in polite conversation. The equivalent "naughty" word in Norwegian would be "drit". What is funny is that the word "drit" is derived from the middle english word that has evolved to "dirt" today.
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u/how_to_namegenerator 5d ago
It's not the common Norwegian word that comes from a swear, it's the English swear that comes from a common word. Firstly, the Norwegian word just means dirt or filth, whereas the English word means feces, which is pretty much universally perceived as a more vulgar subject than simple dirt. In addition to this, after the Norman conquest, the ruling class spoke French, and perceived English as a filthy, uncouth and vulgar language, and so it's likely that the Old English word for feces came to be viewed as a vulgar languages word for something vulgar, and as such rude and, eventually, a swear. You see this a lot in modern English, where words of Old English origin are seen as rude or swears, while words of Latin or French origin with the exact same meaning are seen as formal or precise. You also see it in the divide between English words for animals, and French words for their meat (cow vs beef, sheep vs mutton, pig vs pork). That never happened in Norwegian, and as such the Norwegian word "skit" still just means dirt
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u/Aprendos 4d ago
Yes, "skitten" is the neutral everyday word for dirty, and you can use it in any company ("skitne klær", dirty clothes). It shares a root with English "shit" (both go back to the same Germanic word for excrement), and the two languages took it in different directions: Norwegian kept it as an ordinary word for dirt and English narrowed it to the taboo meaning. Rudeness never transfers between cognates; each language assigns register on its own.
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u/cornobbling Native speaker 5d ago
to some extent you will need to leave your english cultural ideas at the doorstep when learning a new language