JEG LIKER

One of the consequences of this internet/Facebook dominated world is the increasingly widespread use of English expressions. The most ubiquitous word today is probably "like"; every Facebook post written, for instance, allows you to click on it.

On the Danish version of Facebook the equivalent option is "synes om det" (which literally means "thinks well of"; oddly there is no single Danish word for like). But in ordinary parlance Danes use the English word, albeit with a twist. Danish verbs conjugate in the present tense by adding an r to the infinitive. So instead of saying jeg ("I") like, they say jeg liker. Which is grammatical nonsense, but a glimpse of the future.

Walter Blotscher