Swedish English

By Joseph Kibe on 7 August 2008 11:29 AM
Ikea 2009 Catalog
Whenever I pick up an IKEA catalog, and begin rifling through glossy page after glossy page of inexpensive Swedish furniture, I always marvel at the advertising copy curled around the EKTORP sofas and MELBU mirrors. It conveys at once excitement, confidence in the reader, and some intangible mystical property that convinces everyone a new set of neon green curtains will improve their lives immeasurably. Take this bit from their new 2009 catalog:
All projects start with frustration and fights. It's absolutely impossible! You cannot make a bed and a bed side table and a wardrobe for less than 150 dollars. I'm not doing it. But then you get going and starting and start drawing and star to visit factories and start to get so involved that it is all you think about. You get obsessed. Crazy. All you think of is how you are going to make that design look as fabulous as your drawing, make it fit in small flat brown ugly box and make it so affordable that many many many many people all over the world get to live together with your beautiful addition to the world of design.

Sure, the text is missing a few commas and has a misappropriated preposition or two. But that really doesn't matter. The text works. I can't decide whether it's the short sentences, higher-than-average use of the exclamation point, or constant references to Sweden, flatness and low prices that make it work so well. It has a maddeningly brilliant simplicity. It's almost as if they care just as much about keeping their word counts low, while maintaining a reasonably high standard of writing, in the same way they strive to make beautiful, but inexpensive furniture.

I'm almost tempted to look at an English textbook for Swedish speakers.

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