Norwegian lesson of the day

forelsket, adj. in love, having a crush. The prefix for- is common in Norwegian, you take a verb and add for- in front and hey presto: a brand new verb requiring an object (“� forelske seg”), usable, in the past tense, as an adjective. I’m having problems defining ‘for-‘. Just like with many English prefixes, the word without a prefix either means something else or doesn’t really mean anything much at all. You can be elsket, but it means “loved”, a passive condition rather than an active one. You can be forbauset (surprised), but not “bauset”, come to think of it, you can’t really be “prised” either, can you? Well, I mean, you can, but it’s got a different meaning entirely.

Anyhow, we also have forlovet, which means engaged, the root being pretty obvious, “� love” means “to promise”. Then there’s the next step in the process, but here the prefix disappears and we have gift, married. Due to some entymological mishap, gift also means poison, and forgiftet means poisoned. So we have the well-used pun: “Forelsket, forlovet, forgiftet”. Life’s natural progression.