The Sweedish word, “Spåromr.” (possibly an abbreviation) came up on an e-mail list I subscribe to; and somebody asked for a translation because he couldn’t get a reasonable result from Google. Can anybody translate?
Update: 2024-11-05 07:55−6:
Thanks to dorfl, comment 2. What prompted the question is:
Photo by Gary Kazin. Used by permission.
The wavy lines make me think of water though, not railroad tracks.
Ah, a brief respite from worrying about the election. 😎
I approach these things via context. <clickety-click>
Spårområdet med plattformar på tågstationen Stockholm Central – Centralstationen.
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The track area with platforms at the train station Stockholm Central – Centralstationen.
Ett försök att visualisera ett större byggprojekt i Gävle, Näringen i strikt rutsystem. Total yta: 1 760 000 kvm Exkl.spåromr och vattentäkt
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An attempt to visualize a major construction project in Gävle, Näringen in a strict grid system. Total area: 1,760,000 sq m Excluding track area and water source
(From Google)
It’s an abbreviation for “Spårområde”. It’s a compound noun build up of “spår”, meaning “track” – in this case railroad track – and “område”, meaning “area”. It means, basically, the railroad tracks and the area so close to them that it’s a concern if people, mooses or anything else wanders in.
@2 From your definition I infer that the English term is right of way, or if more contextualisation is required railway/railroad right of way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_way#Rail_right_of_way
I read spåromr as track room, since spå means fortune telling, but spår is (railroad) track. The English equivalent is spur.
I appreciate #2 dorfl providing the explanation for område. It’s always difficult for me to know where to divide compound words in Swedish.
This is a two-part sign. The top triangle with «Spåromr.» means essentially «be aware, railroad track», while the lower triangle with the slapstick car indicates that there is no barrier stopping you from going into the water. It seems the picture is from somewhere with port facilities and rail track, perhaps a cargo terminal?
@4 Compound words can be tricky. In principle, you could break it up by analogy to “Illråde” and “Hårdråde” as spå-rom-råde, which would mean something like “fortune tell”-“rum, Rome or possibly roe”-“ruler”.
nonsense. It clearly is a warning to drivers not to be dumb and drive off the road into the ocean. You guys and your “translations” phht.
@6
Illråde and Hårdråde are exactly the words which describe the current US situation.
I don’t know Swedish (or how it’s abbreviated) but I am fairly competent with Old Norse. Romr looks like a fairly typical use of the r grammatical ending but omr doesn’t look like a word. It has the same meaning once you’ve added the åde suffix to get område. Mind the area/room/space ruled by the track!
Spå immediately brings to mind Voluspá which also seems topical despite being more than 1000 years old.
Three times they burned her.
Three times she rose.
Always and ever she lives.
Hopefully we won’t have the Blood age or Ax age portions of her Spå.