Comments on: Anybody’s “man” – another personal pronoun

By: Phoenix Language School

Phoenix Language School — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:02:22 +0000

I totally agree with you about the sleeping quote…
nice examples. can you give some more examples.
n
thanks for this post

By: Antonio

Antonio — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:46:49 +0000

I totally agree with you about the sleeping quote!!
Totally nonsense! The more I sleep the less tired I feel =)

Thank you very much for this website, it has been really useful in my odyssey trying to learn Swedish!

By: Ölänning

Ölänning — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:30:25 +0000

@Ann – Haha, that’s very true. Sentences can sound way more and less personally offensive if you use “man ” instead of say “I” or “we”. I’m Swedish so I can come up with an example. Here’s a few:

Man skulle kunna önska sig en lite högre lön = One could wish for a little bit higher salary (this sentence actually means “I want a higher salary, motherfucker!”. OK, that “motherfucker”-part is just my own personal interpretation…) .

Man skulle ha lättare att somna om man slapp höra en massa oljud hela natten _ One could fall asleep easier if one didn’t have to listen to a lot of noise all night (OK, maybe not the best example but what this sentence ACTUALLY means is “Stop making all that noise all night so I can sleep!”. Again if, one likes, one might put a discrete “motherfucker” at the end of the sentence…).

I believe the word “one” is actually used in the UK in the same way, i.e. to make a sentence more polite and avoid offending someone. Now, if you’re American (just guessing) this concept is, of course, completely unheard of. Not that I blame you, though…

By: Ann

Ann — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:29:07 +0000

I’ve noticed that people use “man” much more personally than the (formal) substitute “one”, or the informal “you” or “they”, even. It seems to me it’s often a way to say something without treading that delicate Swedish understanding of casting offense, which escapes me so I cannot come up with any examples.

By: David

David — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:41:28 +0000

Maybe one should just add that the genitive of “man” isn’t “mans” but “ens”, and that “man”, as can be deduced from the post, also uses the “sin/sitt/sina” reflexive possessive pronouns in the same way as “han/hon/den/det/de”…