Flipping through an IKEA catalog, it can seem like their product names are nonsensical words that have no actual meaning. Now there's a quiz to test your IKEA knowledge. Can you recognize the actual IKEA names from the fake?
The folks over at College Humor have put together a fun little list of real and fake IKEA product names. Scrolling through the list, I correctly identified five of the fourteen names as being either real or fake. ONLY FIVE! I honestly thought I knew IKEA better than that!
Take the quiz on College Humor and then let us know how many of the names you correctly identified.
(Image: College Humor)
100 DIY Ideas for the 3-Day Weekend
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
White Enamel Flatwa...
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
I failed....lol...
I haven't checked out the site, but the idea behind this 'joke' sounds racist. Don't Ikea products have Swedish names? People would be really mad if this was about a different language or cultural group, i.e. aboriginal, Swahili, etc.
Racist? Really? In what way? I'm trying to imagine being offended if a language speaker other than English played a game called, "Is this really an American English word?" Some possible words for the list: snark, obsequious, ubiquity. Anyone feeling offended?
How is it racist? Swedish is not a race, it's a nationality. And have you never made fun of Ikea names? They're hilarious to pronounce.
I actually kind of agree with Jasmine. It implies that the Swedish language sounds like a made up language designed to be funny.
When people make up Chinese words with the purpose to imitate Chinese people (usually with an equally offensive accent), that is offensive (to me). But that's people making fun of an ethnicity and playing off stereotypes. I don't think people have the same issue with Swedish people or culture. You just don't get "oh look at the funny looking Swedish person" like you would for other countries because Swedish is not an ethnicity.
Do people get offended by the Swedish Chef on Sesame Street? Every word is made up.
"I haven't checked out the site, but..." is never a good start.
Check out the website then. And see that when the suggested name for a piece of furniture is not an actual piece of furniture it has some other origin, such as a film or book and is not made up for the specific purpose of ridiculing the sound of Swedish.
A little knowledge (you only have to click on the link!) is a good cure for a lot of things.
Take it from a Swedish person:- we are not offended.
It is hilarious when people, from others countries, try to pronounce the names!
And some of them are funny in Swedish, too.
As for the test,: I only missed one! ;-)
Can't believe anyone would think this is offensive or racist (?). I wouldn't be offended if someone came up with a list like this for words in English.
I only got half of these correct. Fail.
I am a swede, and I think I speak for all of us in this cold little country when I say that we are NOT offended. This post made me laugh, and so does the fact that nobody outside of sweden can pronounce those IKEA-names. We understand that they must sound odd to non-swedes. Actually, some of the IKEA-names are intentionally made to be funny for swedes, too. Although, most IKEA-names are names of swedish towns, villages, rivers and so on. JOKKMOKK, KARLSTAD, KIVIK, STOCKHOLM are towns/cities. LACK means lacquer. GOSA means "to cuddle", and therefore is the name of some of the pillows.
You all have my blessing in the continuation of laughing at this language. We laugh at some languages, too. Not pointing fingers here but it might be a neighbor country of ours, possibly in the western direction.
I hate to seem stupid, but where is the answer key? Or do you have to go to the IKEA site and check eachone, which is too much toruble?
(I recognize a few Star Trek references, which is hilarious to me...)
You need to mouse-over the picture to see the answer.
thank you people with a sense of humor. jeez.
Bork bork bork!
In Denmark (Sweden's neighbor) do we hate Swedish. But most of us understands it. I have a bigger problem with Arabic and Chinese.. can't hear it people talking ravish or the real thing.
PS. DANISH :P
Thanks. I thought I tried that, I wonder if IE doesn't work... might try Firefox
Yep, mouseover worked in Firefox, not in my installation of IE.
I failed. sigh.
KaaFc11: What you just wrote is embarassing and offensive. I am Danish too, and I do not appreciate the notion that Danes generally think like you do! Very unclassy.
I am proud of my heritage, and am comfortable with both Swedish and Norwegian. That being said, I love making fun of both languages, because it goes both ways, and it is a standing joke among the nordic countries that we make jokes about our (relatively small) difference :)
btw - 11 out of 14 ;)
Oh, for goodness sake, people, lighten up. This is funny!
I'm American and got 12 of 14 right. But I have the advantage of having actually been to Jokkmokk. ;) It's beautiful, by the way...... :)
After getting the first three wrong, I stopped counting. I thought it was very amusing and clever.
Nine! Heh, go me. I got the Tolkien reference, too.