complete failure of "dad" gene.....

PBo
PBo Posts: 2,493
edited December 2010 in Commuting chat
Why can't i build a good snowman for my son?

The snow is powdery, and just keeps collapsing.

It's tempting to blame the "wrong kind of snow" - but I see other massive snowmen around.
:(
«1

Comments

  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    You need to pack it better, compress it until it becomes shiny.

    Noob. :P
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  • hatbeard
    hatbeard Posts: 1,087
    you need to compress it like christopher reeves compressed that bit of coal into a diamond in the superman film to stop it falling apart.
    Hat + Beard
  • UndercoverElephant
    UndercoverElephant Posts: 5,796
    It is simply the wrong type of snow. We had a couple of days of good snowman snow, which was when the real dads went out, snowballs worked better then too. Then a few days of polystyrene ball type snow which no dad could use to make a snowman. The last couple of days have been back to decent snow, though.

    Good luck with explaining that to a young 'un though.
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  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,673
    and people wont why there are so many words for snow in the countries that have lots of snow.

    Making snowballs at the moment up here is pointless as the snow is not "Hug snow" in Swedish Kram Snö.
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
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  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    I appreciate the fact that the Swedish for snow is Snö.

    I may start referring to it as Snö.
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  • mybreakfastconsisted
    mybreakfastconsisted Posts: 1,018
    Make a snowball, roll the ball round and round the garden till you have the torso, then do the same for the head, scarf, black curly wig, carrot for nose, sorted.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,739
    lost_in_thought wrote:
    I appreciate the fact that the Swedish for snow is Snö.

    I may start referring to it as Snö.

    Or snø in Norwegian.
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  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    rjsterry wrote:
    lost_in_thought wrote:
    I appreciate the fact that the Swedish for snow is Snö.

    I may start referring to it as Snö.

    Or snø in Norwegian.

    But I don't know the code to type that!
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  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,739
    On my Mac keyboard it's Option (or Alt) + O, but may be different if you are on a PC. Shift + Option + O for a capital Ø. Also used as a symbol for 'diameter' as in Ø25.4mm stem clamp.




    Help me
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  • Kieran_Burns
    Kieran_Burns Posts: 9,757
    On Microsoft Windows, using the "United States-International" keyboard setting, it can be typed by holding down the Alt-Gr key and pressing "L". It can also be typed under any keyboard setting by holding down the [Alt] key while typing 0216 or 0248 on the numeric keypad, provided the system uses code page 1252 as system default. (Code page 1252 is a superset of ISO 8859-1, and 216 and 248 are the decimal equivalents of hexadecimal D8 and F8.)

    From Wiki....


    or just copy and paste :)
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  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    Øøøøøøøøøøøøh thanks KB.

    RJS - your ones didn't work...
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  • PBo
    PBo Posts: 2,493
    lost_in_thought wrote:
    I appreciate the fact that the Swedish for snow is Snö.

    I may start referring to it as Snö.

    what does the umlaut do to swedish pronunciation (prob not even called an umlaut there). 'cos, it'd need to be said is "shnur" if the same as german wouldn't it?

    thanks for all the advice everyone...
  • mybreakfastconsisted
    mybreakfastconsisted Posts: 1,018
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-11908583
  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    edited December 2010
    PBo wrote:
    lost_in_thought wrote:
    I appreciate the fact that the Swedish for snow is Snö.

    I may start referring to it as Snö.

    what does the umlaut do to swedish pronunciation (prob not even called an umlaut there). 'cos, it'd need to be said is "shnur" if the same as german wouldn't it?

    thanks for all the advice everyone...

    I reckon it'd be 'Snur'.

    DISCLAIMER: I don't speak Swedish.
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  • bunter
    bunter Posts: 327
    edited December 2010
    my all time favourite umlaut related Wkipedia entry:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_umlaut
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 29,739
    Ø and Ö are pronounced similarly, I think, so in Norwegian I think it's 'shnur' or 'snur'. I'd guess that the Swedish pronuciation is very similar.

    And what LiT just said would sound like 'Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur thanks KB'

    See also Æ and Å.

    Interestingly, these are separate letters of the Norwegian, Danish and Faroese alphabet, not 'accents'
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
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  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    edited December 2010
    My not-very-extensive google research comes to the same conclusion as I did earlier.

    This site's my favourite, although not very useful. The mouth that pops up to illustrate the umlaut (or letter ö) made me giggle. http://swedishalphabet.tripod.com/

    http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix: ... nunciation
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  • drays
    drays Posts: 119
    PBo wrote:
    Why can't i build a good snowman for my son?

    The snow is powdery, and just keeps collapsing.

    It's tempting to blame the "wrong kind of snow" - but I see other massive snowmen around.
    :(

    I did exactly the same thing on saturday, but failed due to powdery snow. It was too cold to build a snowman! Impossible even to make a snowball! :?
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  • nicklouse
    nicklouse Posts: 50,673
    in Swedish the two dots on the ö and the ä are called Pricks. :wink:
    "Do not follow where the path may lead, Go instead where there is no path, and Leave a Trail."
    Parktools :?:SheldonBrown
  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    nicklouse wrote:
    in Swedish the two dots on the ö and the ä are called Pricks. :wink:

    Chortle chortle....
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  • cambs
    cambs Posts: 235
    It's probably too cold.

    When you press the snow together the higher pressure makes some of it melt which then refreezes as you stop pressing. If its too cold it doesn't melt at all and just falls apart.
  • gbsahne001
    gbsahne001 Posts: 1,974
    verging on OT but a woman in Kent phoned 999 to report her snowman had been stolen; apparently police were talking to her over what constitutes an emergency
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  • redvee
    redvee Posts: 11,922
    gbsahne wrote:
    verging on OT but a woman in Kent phoned 999 to report her snowman had been stolen; apparently police were talking to her over what constitutes an emergency

    Already mentioned on BR but has reached Yahoo news too

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-11908583
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  • deptfordmarmoset
    deptfordmarmoset Posts: 3,118
    redvee wrote:
    gbsahne wrote:
    verging on OT but a woman in Kent phoned 999 to report her snowman had been stolen; apparently police were talking to her over what constitutes an emergency

    Already mentioned on BR but has reached Yahoo news too

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-11908583

    Mybreakfastconsisted posted a link earlier.

    Have you listened to the audio? It's classic.
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  • tgotb
    tgotb Posts: 4,714
    Pronunciation:
    å - a bit like "oar"
    ä - a bit like "air"
    ö - a bit like "err"

    Snö is therefore pronounced "Snerr"

    As someone else said, they're extra letters as opposed to accents (though, for some reason, the Swedes appear to have abandoned the letter W to compensate).

    The Swedes also have several different words for what we call a toboggan, which causes endless confusion when talking to my bilingual kids...
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  • Rushie
    Rushie Posts: 115
    The Swedish for snowman is snögubbe. Which is nice.

    My favourite Swedish insult is Skitstovel (sh*tboot) which the current Mrs R refers to me as on a regular basis.

    The Swedish for "a bad workman blames his tools" is "Skit bakom sparkana" (literally - (Sh*t behind the crankhandle").

    They're a strange bunch, the fermented fish-munchers.
  • essex-commuter
    essex-commuter Posts: 2,188
    lost_in_thought wrote:

    This site's my favourite, although not very useful. The mouth that pops up to illustrate the umlaut (or letter ö) made me giggle

    How cool is that alphabet!

    Clicking back and forth across the å, the ä, and the ö sounds like a farmyard! :D
  • Agent57
    Agent57 Posts: 2,300
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ-syLh4JV0
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  • kelsen
    kelsen Posts: 2,003
    Did you try pëëing in the snow first?
  • lost_in_thought
    lost_in_thought Posts: 10,563
    TGOTB wrote:
    Pronunciation:
    å - a bit like "oar"
    ä - a bit like "air"
    ö - a bit like "err"

    Snö is therefore pronounced "Snerr"

    As someone else said, they're extra letters as opposed to accents (though, for some reason, the Swedes appear to have abandoned the letter W to compensate).

    The Swedes also have several different words for what we call a toboggan, which causes endless confusion when talking to my bilingual kids...

    But... but... how do they spell Sweden without the w?
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