Easter quiz results
Okay, here are the answers to my Swedish Easter quiz, then! You did very well, though I noticed that some Nordic non-Swedes sneaked in answers that may have raised the average.
1. The Swedish word for Easter is
Påsk, after the Jewish festival.
This was apparently an easy one, 8/12 got it right. Nobody guessed "ätmaskin", which is good, because it means "eating machine". :-) Påsk is derived from pesach = passover.
2. The Swedish word for Good Friday could be translated back into English as
Long Friday
When I was a kid, I always assumed it was called Långfredag because you were supposed to "ha långtråkigt" = be bored. When my parents were young, everything was cancelled on Good Friday and even the radio only played hymns. 5/12 got this right.
3. Which of these food items is traditional at both Swedish Easter, Christmas and Midsummer?
Herring
You can never have too much herring. :-) At midsummer, you'd eat Matjesherring, while at Christmas and Easter you eat any kind of herring you can find. Eggs are traditional at Easter, but more may-or-may-not-be-there at Christmas and Midsummer. 7/12 got this right.
4. During Maundy Thursday, it's traditional for children to dress up as
Witches
They ask for candy, too. You can imagine how confusing it was for elderly candy-owners when Halloween started getting popular. "You want candy NOW? Well, where's my card, then? You don't HAVE cards to hand out? Then why would I give you anything? Or you'll WHAT!? That's blackmail!" (*Closes door, kids throw eggs at house.*) 5/12 got this right.
5. The word ”Skärtorsdag” (Maundy Thursday) means
Clean Thursday OR All of the above.
The word "skär(a)" means pink, clean, or cut, but in this instance, it comes from the idea that one should cleanse oneself before Easter. So alternatives 2 and 4 are both correct. Sneaky. :-) 9/12 answered one of these two options.
6. The following Easter days are holidays in Sweden:
Friday, Sunday and Monday
Sweden's very fond of its "annandagar" = second days. We celebrate second day of Christmas, second day of Easter, and there was lots of grumbling when second day of Pentecost stopped being a holiday to make room for 6th of June, the national day. (Of course, the grumbling was partly based on the fact that twice in seven years, the 6th of June is on a weekend, while second day of Pentecost is always a Monday. 6/12 got this right.
***
In other news, I noticed that my unfinished fic folder was for once not hideously full - the Sayid/Sawyer fic is so unwieldy I'm not gonna work on it for a while (what was I thinking, trying to make a story that's pretty much all sex play when I suck at writing sex scenes?) while the Batman fic is so long it doesn't feel very pressing. And so I started writing a Buffyverse idea from four years ago. The idea has morphed a bit in four years, but the basics are the same. And it went really well, maybe because I've been mulling on it for so long. I wrote 1100 words in a few hours.
And it kind of both amuses and troubles me that this means I now have TWO alternate Jossverse seasons with unexpected mothers showing up.
1. The Swedish word for Easter is
Påsk, after the Jewish festival.
This was apparently an easy one, 8/12 got it right. Nobody guessed "ätmaskin", which is good, because it means "eating machine". :-) Påsk is derived from pesach = passover.
2. The Swedish word for Good Friday could be translated back into English as
Long Friday
When I was a kid, I always assumed it was called Långfredag because you were supposed to "ha långtråkigt" = be bored. When my parents were young, everything was cancelled on Good Friday and even the radio only played hymns. 5/12 got this right.
3. Which of these food items is traditional at both Swedish Easter, Christmas and Midsummer?
Herring
You can never have too much herring. :-) At midsummer, you'd eat Matjesherring, while at Christmas and Easter you eat any kind of herring you can find. Eggs are traditional at Easter, but more may-or-may-not-be-there at Christmas and Midsummer. 7/12 got this right.
4. During Maundy Thursday, it's traditional for children to dress up as
Witches
They ask for candy, too. You can imagine how confusing it was for elderly candy-owners when Halloween started getting popular. "You want candy NOW? Well, where's my card, then? You don't HAVE cards to hand out? Then why would I give you anything? Or you'll WHAT!? That's blackmail!" (*Closes door, kids throw eggs at house.*) 5/12 got this right.
5. The word ”Skärtorsdag” (Maundy Thursday) means
Clean Thursday OR All of the above.
The word "skär(a)" means pink, clean, or cut, but in this instance, it comes from the idea that one should cleanse oneself before Easter. So alternatives 2 and 4 are both correct. Sneaky. :-) 9/12 answered one of these two options.
6. The following Easter days are holidays in Sweden:
Friday, Sunday and Monday
Sweden's very fond of its "annandagar" = second days. We celebrate second day of Christmas, second day of Easter, and there was lots of grumbling when second day of Pentecost stopped being a holiday to make room for 6th of June, the national day. (Of course, the grumbling was partly based on the fact that twice in seven years, the 6th of June is on a weekend, while second day of Pentecost is always a Monday. 6/12 got this right.
***
In other news, I noticed that my unfinished fic folder was for once not hideously full - the Sayid/Sawyer fic is so unwieldy I'm not gonna work on it for a while (what was I thinking, trying to make a story that's pretty much all sex play when I suck at writing sex scenes?) while the Batman fic is so long it doesn't feel very pressing. And so I started writing a Buffyverse idea from four years ago. The idea has morphed a bit in four years, but the basics are the same. And it went really well, maybe because I've been mulling on it for so long. I wrote 1100 words in a few hours.
And it kind of both amuses and troubles me that this means I now have TWO alternate Jossverse seasons with unexpected mothers showing up.