"Keeping distance is being thoughtful"
These signs are found all over the parks in our city this summer, as a reminder to keep distance, even when sunshine and greenery and holiday mood may tempt us to forget all about the invisible virus.
On this particular occasion (last Tuesday), I had no difficulties keeping distance, though - as I was the only visitor in this little park down by the river when I took the these photos. Plenty of room for me to just be thoughtful all to myself!
Obviously, there are different rules for plants & flowers!
PS. Being a language nerd, I had to try to figure out what the languages on the sign are... I recognize four out of seven (Swedish, English, Finnish, and German at the bottom) but what about the ones in the middle? Google Translate helped me identify the fifth as Somali. No 4 and 6 are likely to be Arabic and Persian, but which is which? I searched for ways to tell them apart, and found a 5 min YouTube course on that very topic... So I think I can now say that the languages from top to bottom on the sign are: Swedish, English, Finnish, Arabic, Somali, Persian, German.
Why? In the previous century, we had lots of Finnish immigrants (and many people with Finnish roots still living here). In later years, many immigrants from the Middle East and Africa. As for German, I guess some immigrants (for example from Eastern Europe) perhaps know more German than English (+ we get German tourists in the summer).
12 comments:
I could sit on one of those benches and snap myself silly! All the flowers are just gorgeous and my favorite are those red ones that are covering that big bush I think they might be red Mexican sunflowers but I'm not sure. Whatever they are they are gorgeous
Forgot to say even if I was over there wandering I might not be able to read the sign but it's got plenty of pictures that say it without words
This is a totally lovely little park! I have been reading that the virus is bad in Sweden...
The orange petalled brown centred plant that appears in the first four photos has reminded me that my Dad used to have them in the garden. I've been trying to remember what they are called. I think they are called Common Sneezeweed. I've looked it up and the Latin name is Helenium autumnalae (which might help you to find out if I'm right). I like them.
How fun to be the only person in the park, some peaceful moments. I grow nasturtiums (I see some in your photos) and eat the flowers in salads. To me they taste like radishes. Do you eat them?
Thanks Graham. Common Sneezeweed sounds like a very mundane name for a pretty flower! In roundabout ways from the Latin I managed to find that in Swedish it is called Trädgårdssolbrud, which means "Garden Sun Bride".
Terra, I don't think I've ever tried eating nasturtium flowers, even though now that you mention it, I've heard that one can. I have sometimes had some on my balcony in summer as they are easy to grow from seed. Some of those flowerbeds in the park also have green stuff in them that look a lot like salad or cabbage. Maybe there is an "edible" theme to those plantations - I'm not sure, though!
Sandra, one of the languages is English! ;) ... (Since you commented, I have also figured out the rest, and added that to the bottom of the post.)
Ginny, sadly the virus hit hard in some areas back in the spring, especially among elderly people in care homes or with home care (where it is hard to keep distance and to limit the number of contacts). That also led to a statistically high number of deaths (compared to the total population). The peak was back in April though and numbers have kept going down since.
All alone in that beautiful park on a Tuesday - where was everybody? School, work, shopping?
We have similar signs dotted around town, too, but I believe they are only in German, which is strange if you consider how many people from other nations live here - mainly Turkish, but also a substantial number of Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Syrians, Eritreans and many more.
You know of my love of languages, and I find it particularly interesting that the same meaning in Somali needs so many more words than, say, in German.
Reading Meike's post made me think of the times I used to struggle with German composite words. The first I was given was Streichholzschächtelchen. I believe that the longest word ever is Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft.
So much nice colour blending together there. It's good you were there with only 1 other person, here people still have trouble social distancing.
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