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Fettisdagen (different day every year, it’s February 16th 2021) a.k.a. mardi gras is the last day to eat semla [until Easter], not the first day.
A few years ago people started getting that completely backwards and seeing it as the start of semmelseason. Sober up and do the right thing! It’s the last day. Ash Wednesday comes Feb 17 and by then it’s no more semlor!
“Whaddayamean, Sandra, we don’t care about traditio…” In that case then just eat semlor whenever but then really stick to that. Don’t be like “hohoho I love to eat semlor the days after mardi gras that’s tradition”. It’s not. That’s backwards.
If you’re like “I wanna eat semlor any day year round” then this post don’t apply to you. Obviously. It only applies to the primitive screwheads who are obsessed about semmeldagen but still gets it backwards.
Any semmel-eating on Ash Wednesday or during lent means friendship over.
“Semmel-” is an interesting noun case.
Normally it’s:
En semla
Flera semlor
Den semlan
Dom semlorna
“Semmel-” is analogous to “äppel-“ I guess. People writing “äppleträd” or “äpplepaj” are bandits and heartbreakers.
Or “gurkasallad”*. In lojban “semmel-“, “äppel-“ or “gurk-“ style forms are called rafsi forms. Not sure what it’s called in Swedish grammar.
“Semmel” is the form for use in compound nouns. “Semmel day”, “Semmel season”, “semmel eating”. In compound nouns that’s the right way and in non-compound nouns it’s the wrong way.
In other forms it’s not used; “nice day for a semla”, “season for semlor”, “saving the last semlan for later”, “throwing all the semlorna out the window”.
Only very few words (“semmel” and “äppel” are the ones I can think of) have a such an unsual case for this compound nouns.
“Gurksallad” (but c.f. “pizzasallad“), “familjefar”, “arbetarklass“, “fotbollsplan” all follow kinda complex vowel elision or morpheme affixing rules; even both elision and affixing in the same word, like “godnattsagebok”.
“Semmel-” is the product of
It’s a rare conflux of things that created the form “semmel-”♥
Truth is, grammar is a model. A crude map of the beach, not every grain of sand in the actual territory of the beach.
When I use words like “worthlessest” or “dåligaste” or “wouldn’t’ve” or “the guitar’ll sound bad” it’s not because I’m stupid. I mean I am but my language experiments aren’t a direct consequence of that. They are deliberate because I wanna see what is gonna work, what’s gonna feel great to reread in a few months and what’s gonna be cause for edits and revisions.