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Category: English vocabulary

Same but different

2026-02-25 / / 0 Comments

Words in two languages that look and/or sound the same but have different meanings are called false friends. Some English–Swedish false friends are particularly treacherous, since they have opposite meanings. Here are a few examples:

adept

In English, if you are adept, you are good at doing something that needs care and skill. The noun adept means someone who is skilled at something, a master or expert. The word comes from Latin ADEPTUS, meaning who has achieved (i.e. knowledge). In the Middle Ages, an adept was someone who alleged to have found the philosopher’s stone, that is, who was a master in alchemy.

The Swedish word adept means pupil, disciple, or novice, beginner. The word has the same Latin origin as the English adept, and yet it has the opposite meaning.

babysitter

A babysitter in English is someone who looks after a child or children while the parents are out.  In Swedish, that person is called barnvakt.

Babysitter is the Swedish word for baby bouncer, a supportive seat designed for infants that provides a gentle bouncing or rocking motion.

The image shows a small child in a baby bouncer. Her sister is sitting next to her. The image illustrates the word babysitter as an example of. false friends, words that are the same but different.
Swedish babysitter (left), English babysitter (right)

remiss

Remiss in English means careless, negligent. It comes from Latin REMITTERE, send back, which related to letting go and then took on the meaning of carelessness.

Of the same Latin origin, the Swedish noun remiss means a doctor’s referral of a patient to a hospital or specialist for examination or treatment. The word also refers to a matter being referred to a committee, etc., for consideration, especially in Parliament.

ask

Unlike false friends, false cognates do not share the same origin. One example is ask.

In English you can ask a question, Swedish fråga, or ask somebody to do something for you, Swedish be. You can also ask a person to dinner or to dance, Swedish bjuda. Ask comes from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning to wish or request, in Old English ASCIAN.

In Swedish, ask (from another Proto-Indo-European word meaning ash) is either an ash-tree, Fraxinus excelsior, or a small box, usually with a loose lid.

English ask and Swedish ask look the same but do not have the same origin. They are false cognates.

You can find more than 400 examples of false friends (and false cognates) in my book It’s not the farts that kill – it’s the smell!, available at Amazon. You can read about the book here. And you can read about false friends here.

Seven years!

2026-01-29 / / 0 Comments

I have written blog posts here since January 2019, seven years ago. Being a copyeditor and a language nerd, I find the English language both fascinating and challenging.

Over these years I have written about the difference between recollect and re-collect, grateful and thankful, discrete and discreet, different and various, technique and technology, unsatisfied and dissatisfied, and many others. I have explained how to use brackets and parentheses, how to write compound words, and how to use abbreviations. I have shown that ’they’ can refer to one person and clarified the difference between compare to and compare with. I have written about false friends and about English idioms, and I have explained what a backronym is.

A man is looking out of a window with his living-room wall behind him. The image illustrates the difference between dissatisfied and unsatisfied.
Dissatisfied with the wallpaper in his living-room?

After 115 blog entries, I hope that I have been able to help my readers understand English better and avoid making mistakes that could be both embarrassing and disastrous.

In the column on the right, you can find all my blog posts. You can see a list of the latest topics and you can search for a particular word that you would like to know more about.

Let me know if there is a word or an expression that you would like me to write about. And if you are writing your dissertation or a paper for a scientific journal and would like me to copyedit it before submitting, send an email to info@copyeditor.se.

Seven years after the start, this is my first blog entry in 2026. I hope there will be more.

A man writing on a computer.
Blogging along

Localization

2025-10-22 / / 1 Comment

What is localization?

Localization adapts content to suit local and regional norms. A product is adapted to a specific market. In business, it is crucial to understand what connotations a word may have in a certain region.

The South Korean car maker Kia presented a new model at the Geneva Motor Show in 2013. The car was named Provo, which, according to Kia, referred to the Italian word prova, test or prototype. (Provo is also the name of a city in Utah, USA.)

Rock Canyon Temple in Provo, Utah

However, the name of the car was met with strong reactions in the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland, where the name Provo is short for the Provisional IRA, an organization that was blamed for almost 2 000 deaths during the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland 1970–1997, a campaign of violence to gain independence from Britain. The Provos were also blamed for bombings and murders in England.

After a member of the British Parliament tabled a motion that said that the name would be offensive to many victims of the Provisionals, Kia issued a clear statement that they would not launch the model in the UK.

To succeed with localization, you must understand what connotations a word has for your target audience. I will have more examples of failed localization in my next blog post.

Connotations in English and Swedish

2025-09-26 / / 0 Comments

What is a connotation?

Connotations are associations and feelings that a word evokes. They can be positive, negative, or neutral. Connotations are shaped by culture and context and may differ from person to person.

The difference in connotations between two languages must, of course, be taken into consideration by those communicating in the two languages.

Connotations can be shared by many people. The English word house to most people has a neutral connotation – it means a type of residential building, especially a one-family dwelling. The word home, on the other hand, has positive connotations of warmth, security, and family life.

Connotations may differ also between languages. While the Swedish word hem has the same connotations as the English home, Swedish hus has wider connotations than English house and may refer to any residential building irrespective of size, such as a block of flats.

Another example of a word with different connotations in English and Swedish is villa. In English, a villa is a large and luxurious country house, especially in continental Europe. In the UK it is a large, detached house in a residential area, especially from  Edwardian or Victorian time. Villa can also refer to a large country house of Roman times with farm and residential buildings around a courtyard. The Latin word villa meant manor, country estate.

In Swedish, a villa is a one-family house or a bungalow. The main goals in life of medelsvensson, the average Swede, are said to be villa, Volvo, vovve, a house, a Volvo, a doggie.

To make things more complicated, the Swedish word villa can also mean illusion or delusion.

A city in English refers to a large town. In Swedish, city has the connotation of downtown.

An amusing, and arguably misleading, example is North American restroom, a euphemism for lavatory or toilet. To non-native speakers the connotation with the verb rest, relax, will be natural. In my book about English–Swedish false friends I relate a story about an American who was picking up his Swedish friend at an airport. When they got in the car, the American said, ”Perhaps you need to go to the restroom?”, and without hesitation, the Swede answered, ”No, I can do that in the car”.

Interior of a small lavatory with a toilet, a wash-basin, and some towels. The image illustrates the North American word restroom which may have other connotations for to non-native speakers
Restroom?

To recognize connotations is crucial in localization, by which a product is adapted to a specific market. You can read more about it here.

Finally, a denotation is the dictionary definition of a word, the objective meaning of the word.

Unsatisfied and dissatisfied

2025-05-23 / / 1 Comment

What’s the difference between unsatisfied and dissatisfied?

UNSATISFIED

When you are unsatisfied, you are not yet satisfied or fulfilled. There is incompleteness, a lack of something. You are not getting everything that is needed. Unsatisfied can refer to both people and things and ideas.

Children often feel an unsatisfied hunger for love and acceptance.
The defendant argued that the obligations under the contract were unsatisfied.

DISSATISFIED

When you are dissatisfied, you feel unhappy, displeased, disappointed, frustrated. Dissatisfied refers to how people feel.

Fred was dissatisfied with the wallpaper in his living-room.

A msn is standing by a window, looking out. A TV set is mounted on a wall. The wallpaper has a pattern of large flowers in black and white. The image illustrates the concept of dissatisfied.
Fred was dissatisfied with the wallpaper in his living-room

To sum up,

Unsatisfied = unfulfilled
Dissatisfied = annoyed, not happy

Some related words:

Dissatisfaction – disappointment, discontent
Dissatisfactory – causes dissatisfaction 
Unsatisfactory – inadequate
Unsatisfying – failing to satisfy

Read about uninterested and disinterested here.

Each other or one another?

2025-03-28 / / 0 Comments

Which is correct, each other or one another?

Some language purists would maintain that each other refers to two people or things and one another to more than two, but the general opinion now is that the two expressions are interchangeable. However, one another is often seen as being more formal.

The two animals stared fiercely at each other.
We have known one another for years.

A cat and a dog are looking fiercely at each other. The image illustrates each other and one another.
The two animals stared fiercely at each other

The genitive is used with an apostrophe plus s:

They compared each other’s (one another’s) notes.

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