Travel by Scrotum
Kainuu is a region in Eastern Finland, one of the former provinces and a rather rural area covered by forests, swamps and hills. Compare it with Sogn og Fjordane fylke and you get quite close: a rather distant, hard-to-travel-to-from-the-biggest-cities -type of district with no bigger towns nearby. Still, it's extremely beautiful, with awesome landscapes and a rather slow tempo of living.But unlike Sogn og Fjordane, Kainuu is -by looking at the map terminology- a real macho Reich.
When I first visited a town called Sotkamo, I soon figured out I had entered the ancient lands of hunters, a masculine society that wasn't ashamed of its testosterone-filled terminology.
Just before arriving at Sotkamo (if you drive from Oulu from the West), I was amused by several macho names given to villages, valleys and lakes. There is a region where the usage of word 'kives' is extensive. 'Kives' literally (and medically) means testicle. And here is a lovely story to tell you.
There is a joke in Kainuu about the unproper way to pronounce soft consonants combined with the ambition of adding 'kives' to many names of places.
Here is the joke:
Q: How do you get to Kivesjärvi? (Miten pääset Kivesjärvelle?)
A: Kivespussilla, tietenkin. (With Kivespussi, of course.)
For those who know the Finnish way of pronouncing words, this joke might be easy to reveal.
Firstly,
kives means testicle.
But unlike in English, Finnish doesn't recognize a separate word for scrotum but instead combines two descriptive words: kives and pussi, testicle and bag, respectively.
Thus, kivespussi, scrotum is literally translated as a testicle bag. Sounds very logic, indeed.
And now to the alas-so-funny answer:
"Kivespussilla, tietenkin."
Finns, especially the elderly, do not necessarily care to distinguish between b and p, d and t, g and k, when speaking.
Bear and pear, Alabama and Alapama, radio and ratio... it's not a big deal to use either version.
Thus, the word 'bus' in Finnish is 'bussi'. But as you probably by now have guessed, Finns can equally well just say 'pussi'.
And the funny word play is complete:
Kivespussi, concretely meaning just Scrotum (literally testicle bag) turns into 'Testicle Bus' - a vehicle that transports you to Kivesjärvi (Testicle Lake), Kivesvaara (Testicle Hill) and other masculine-related places in Kainuu heartlands.
It's hilarious to think this would not work in English at all.
Or would it? :)
-How do you get to Kivesjärvi?
-By taking the Scrotum, of course.
posted by Anicko @ 10:41 AM
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