The Best Ever Book of Swedish Jokes: Lots and Lots of Jokes Specially Repurposed for You-Know-Who

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Scandinavian jokes featuring “the Swede, the Dane and the Norwegian” are commonplace in schools. The typical Swede is seen as rich, arrogant, and tech-savvy. The typical Dane is usually seen as a slightly decadent hedonist, with a can of beer never far from reach. The typical Norwegian is shown to be an uneducated jumper-wearing country bumpkin, always with a fish close at hand. I got my son a trampoline for his birthday. The ungrateful boy sat in his wheelchair the hole time! You know when you’re trying to sleep and you hear a car screeching its brakes as it flies off into the distance? Well, that car is being driven by a “fartdåre”. If you were brought up to mind your p’s and q’s, you might find the Swedish way of communicating to be blunt. Swedes are good at thank you’s – learn how to say thank you in Swedish here– but there is no one word for “please”. They’re just more direct than English speakers generally are, and manners are different the world over. This word came about in the 1970s when paternity leave was introduced in Sweden and it’s been a staple word ever since.

In Sweden, they're Norgehistorier ("Norway stories"), in Norway Svenskevitser ("Swede jokes"). The Danes tend to reserve their Aarhus-vittigheder for people from the country's second biggest city. Another food related idiom, if a Swede tells you you’re going to get your fish warm, you’re in for some bad news. Rest assured, the humor doesn’t end with the basics. Funny Swedish phrases, words and sayings are absolutely everywhere. Let’s take a look at 20 of them! 1. Pappaledig Extra funny Swedish word: Lattepappor (latte daddies). Because men who are “pappaledig” take their kids to cafes!

In the episode I chat with comedian Al Pitcher who’s been part of the Swedish comedy scene since 2010. He’s originally from New Zealand and jokes about situations he finds himself in that tend to pinpoint Swedish sense of humor, traditions and all those little things that make us, “outsiders”, bend our heads a bit and giggle. What’s important – not to be mean to each other as people here much rather make fun of themselves than make anyone else get hurt. Thomas Oredsson was one of the rookies who organised the first comedy night. “We didn’t really know what stand-up was,” he says. “We went to a restaurant in Gamla Stan and asked if we could so a show, tell some jokes, and we went up that evening. It was a hit from the start.” My dad is 100% Swedish and this was his favorite joke to tell waitresses when we went out to eat. Waitress: Are you all finished? Let’s immediately agree that ethnic discrimination is bad. But I see in hindsight why the Finn’s aggressive response would have appealed to me as a victim of bullying. This petty parody — the Swedish eager-beaver versus the anti-social Finn — deflated the hollow core of racism. Besides, in Finland there was an even more politically incorrect stereotyping of Swedes: Slang words for homosexuals had Swedish connotations. An example that comes to mind is Even your average Svensson can get a bit uptight when Nujen treads on sensitive ground. “Swedes do love to laugh but they can get angry when I joke about the hypocrisy in this country,” he says.

I’ll never forget my Granddad’s last words to me just before he died. “Are you still holding the ladder?”Now that I’m getting older, I remember all the people I lost along the way. Maybe a career as a tour guide was’t such a good idea. Safe to say, if you get offended easily (or at all, for that matter), you won’t like some of the jokes here. Just remember:

A Swede was reading the phonebook, "Forsberg... Forsberg... Forsberg... It's incredible how many phone numbers that guy has."Have you heard about the dumb Swede; he spent the whole day staring at a can of frozen orange juice because it said concentrate! Där är inte plogat hela vägen fram till dig = “ The snow plow didn’t make it all the way to you” (alludes to someone not using their full brain capacity in one way or another) Granted, this is a pretty dark Swedish phrase. But asking someone if they would prefer plague or cholera is usually used sarcastically or with a heavy dose of irony.