MAWNGENOWN. I have no idea what the spelling of this word is in Danish. The spelling in the caption is how it sounded when my mother said it. Words enter languages because they are useful (see the other post for today). My mother defined “mawngenown” as “morning grumpiness in men.” We pressed her on whether it could ever be applied to women. She was firm that it could not be used to apply to women. Because the men in the household were too sleepy in the morning to muster grumpiness, we learned the word fairly late in life.
Categories
Archives
Recent Comments
- Gary Nuetzel on THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON. (COMMENT).
- Francesca on EATING PEAS WITH A KNIFE.
- avon wilsmore on CHEATING IN CHAMPIONSHIP BRIDGE.
- Anonymous on THE LANGUAGE WEIRDNESS INDEX.
- James Friscia on THE SECOND OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE.
- Ken Babcock on THE SECOND OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE.
- Lickity Splitfingers on THE SECOND OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE.
- Ken Babcock on THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON. (COMMENT).
- David Quemere on THE OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE STARTS ITS 32ND SEASON. (COMMENT).
- Nicholas Schaefer on THE SECOND OLDEST FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE.
Meta
Interestingly, my Danish friend, Sussi, had never heard of Mawngnown. I was very disappointed, since it’s one of the few (purportedly) Danish words I know.
I love the idea of being too sleepy to muster grumpiness. For me, the two often go hand in hand. I should invent a word for my sleepy grumpiness.
Morgengnaven = morning grumpy (gnaven means grumpy)
It’s pronounced morn-gnaywn.
It’s not a word we normally use though. Usually if someone is grumpy or gets annoyed easily after he or she has just woken up, you call them morgensur which literally means “morning sour” and is pronounced morn-soor. Sur is a word which is used interchangeably for angry, mad, grumpy, and most other negative moods one can be in.
Just out of interest what is your relation to Denmark and why are you coming up with these Danish words? What’s the story? Myself, I just happened to stumble upon this blog using blogsearch.google.com.
It wasn’t answered here, but the short answer (speaking as the blogger’s son) is that the blogger’s mother was a native born Dane. Hence why one of my middle names is Pallesen