Sunday, September 20, 2009

Note to self and others

If you're going to start a religion, make sure you don't choose a name for it that can be anagrammed. One of our Swedish viewers alerts us to this bit of prankery, in which the sign on the building of a local Jehovah's Witnesses' Kingdom Hall — "Rikets Sal" — has been creatively edited to read "Skitarsle," which, we are informed, translates in English to "asshole."

Not that we approve of such petty vandalism. But I'm still chuckling.

11 comments:

  1. A closer translation would be "sh*t ass". Not a common word but you have to work with what you get.

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  2. An anagram for Jehovah's Witnesses:

    "Naive. He shows jests."

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  3. I thought I was the only swedish reader.

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  4. Nope, here's another one! No surprise that swedes are overrepresented at an atheist blog though.

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  5. I should add that I wrote back to the guy who sent this in. He explained a more accurate translation is "shit hole." I told him that actually is more applicable, because it's a defamation of a "place" rather than a "person." Again, I can't condone vandalism. But wanted to share that.

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  6. "Martin said...
    I thought I was the only swedish reader."

    Det finns fler svenskar här...

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  7. Tons of people from Sweden. I want to move there one day. I've been wanting to visit Sweden and Norway for the longest time now.

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  8. Funny to think that in Sweden atheists are the moral majority.

    I am quite fond of Sweden, when I was a teenager we had a foreigne xchange student form there who came to live with our family for a year. I considered her like my sister. She is the first atheist I remember meeting.

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  9. Hi there Tracie! It's Mattias here who sent you the story. I think you should correct the last sentense in the blog-post ... :) Or is my english that bad?

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  10. I'm not chuckling.

    This is nothing more than criminal trespass and malicious vandalism; no different than removing the "P" and "L" from the sign at a PFLAG office. (See what I did there?)

    I can think of a number of places - religious and otherwise - where this kind of stunt would entail genuine risk. JW's are a pretty mild bunch as god-botherers go, so the vandals(s) involved had essentially ZERO chance of getting their clocks cleaned, making this an example of cowardly opportunism masquerading as bravado.

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  11. Yay! Sweden rules! ...And swedish Jehova's Witnesses don't! Sverige e bäst, Sverige e bäst...

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