Cookies, buns and ostkaka

There was a bit of construction work going on along our road today. I could hear the clunk and grind of heavy machinery from the house then, when I walked into town, there was a big grader parked on the corner. While it wasn’t blocking the road, it was rather imposing.

I was wondering whether it would cause any kind of blockage later in the day, given Nicoline was picking me up to go for dinner at Lagnö Bo tonight. This week, Ann-Helen came as well, making us a jolly trio, with them throwing Swedish at me at every opportunity. Which made me laugh, prompting them to do it again.

However, returning to blockages. There was a weird kind of blockage further along the road on my return trip from shopping.

I was hauling my trolley full of beer up our road when a delivery truck pulled up ahead of me, taking up more than the half of road it had a right to. I saw a van ahead of the truck, starting to pull out of a driveway. Then a car appeared coming towards me. The car passed the van then squeezed by the truck. At that point, a car drove by me.

Both of the cars met between me and the truck and stopped for a chat. This seemed a bit odd. I’m sure the van driver thought so too. I was wondering how I was supposed to keep walking given the road was now completely blocked.

I needn’t have worried as the car coming towards me, having completed the conversation, pulled away and continued moving forwards. Not very far, though. The car pulled up next to me and stopped. It was Beth from next door who wanted to have a chat about baked goods.

I could see the van driver, who had now pulled up behind Beth’s car. He didn’t look that impressed but he stayed sat behind her while Beth asked me if I preferred cookies to buns. Obviously, I prefer buns. That established to her satisfaction, she then drove off, followed closely by the van.

It was an odd little meeting but, in the end, and following my concern about the road blockage and how it was going to affect me, it all came to diddly-squat. Which nicely brings me to another bit of etymology.

As I was getting out of Nicoline’s car this evening, for some reason, I used the term ‘diddly-squat’. She then asked me, politely, if I would explain the term. I said it meant nothing. Literally. She then asked me to detail its origin in my next post. So here it is.

The first occurrence of the term ‘diddly-squat’ was in 1963. It was originally ‘doodly-squat’, which first appeared in print in America in the 1930’s. Basically, ‘doodly’ referred to excrement and ‘squat’ is how you get rid of it. Saying someone was doing doodly-squat basically meant they were doing nothing. Because what else does one do when evacuating one’s bowels?

When the expression changed in 1963, it was actually changed to ‘diddly-shit’ but, because of the huge fines handed out for swearing on the radio and TV in the US, it went back to squat.

‘Diddly’ came from doing nothing, dawdling, fool around pointlessly. Given ‘doodly’ was a little less savoury, the change makes sense. People would often just say they were ‘doing diddly’ and leave the squatting out of it.

So, there you go. It’s not very old, it’s a bit crude and, surprisingly, it’s American.

The kitchen team at Lagnö Bo were doing far from diddly-squat tonight. They had whipped up a lovely quinoa salad and dressing of which quite a few of the diners indulged in twice.

There were more people there tonight and I had a lovely chat with Annika and Magnus about Gotland and how native speakers talk too quickly for easy understanding. As Magnus said, whenever you pick up a word or two and manage to work out what the conversation is about, the chat has rapidly continued far beyond any further understanding.

It was an excellent night. Though the repair work makes the place look quite devastated.

But the delights of the night were not yet complete. Nicoline had brought with her homemade (though not in her home) ostkaka, cream and cloudberry jam which the three of us enjoyed on the deck as the sun set behind the house.

While, in Malmö, Mirinda enjoyed, if that’s the right word, the last day of the conference while, in Paris, Jason posed beneath the Eiffel Tower.

What a splendid, and sometimes strange, day it was.