My favourite Finnish nouns, adjectives and verbs

Once I had slept over them, I wasn't satisfied with the lists of words I came up yesterday. And since there was again more commute fun than usually, thanks to the power failure that, for the second evening in row, had shut down our train station, I drafted a new one. The same rules apply - I don't claim that all of these words are particularly aesthetic or pleasant-sounding, but the point is that to me they are convincing and inspiring, visual. For the translations you can mostly blame my online dictionary.

Since boyz n the bloghood pointed that there were no verbs allowed yesterday, I opted for some affirmative action - or is it segregation? - and gave each to their own. We play with eleven because 33 as a numeral is more beautiful than 30.

Narri (jester, fool)
Kalmo (corpse)
Virvatuli (ignis fatuus)
Hepsankeikka (over-friendly girl - or 'flibbertigibbet', apparently)
Elonkorjuu (harvest)
Hiidenkirnu (giant's kett...asch, you know, this thing)
Piruparka (poor devil)
Uuni (oven)
Syöveri (abyss, depths)
Possu (piggy)
Unilukkari (that guy whose duty was to patrol in Lutheran churches during a service and wake up everyone who was falling asleep)

Kaitsea (to shepherd, to watch over)
Käyskennellä (to saunter)
Uinua (to doze, to lie dormant)
Hummata (to party too joyfully for one's income level...I guess)
Huoahtaa (to sigh, to breathe)
Sammaltaa (to slur like you had moss in your moth, e.g. when drunk)
Liplattaa (to ripple)
Juksata (to hoax benevolently)
Vaeltaa (to wander, to trek)
Kieppua (to whirl)
Versoa (to germinate, to sprout)

Purppura (purple, crimson)
Säyseä (meek, docile)
Valpas (vigilant)
Höveli (careless)
Hupsu (positively silly)
Tympeä (banal, repulsive)
Seesteinen (serene)
Mölli (jerkish, taciturn)
Äitelä (sugary, mawkish)
Kaikkivoipa (omnipotent)
Vehmas (leafy, fertile)

Funnily enough, äiti is the most beloved word that exists in Finnish, but probably no one associates äitelä with anything positive. To me, it stands for Nordic ciders - overly sweet, girlish and full of industrial essence. Tarja Halonen, when chanting (messuta) about *yawn* Nordic welfare ...zzz... state to a foreign audience, can be quite äitelä, too. (And no, heaven's sake no, I will quote neither Sauli Niinistö nor his copywriter here. No.)

Listing words was a surprisingly interesting thing to do, perhaps due to its psychological aspect. I did it so that for each category I wrote down the first fifteen words that 'clinged' and then dumbed riihitonttu, sipata, salakavala and the others which clinged least. And now that I read my 33 through, and tried to see them as a whole, many of them do seem to have something in common, though I just can't figure out what it might be - maybe there's a good word for it but I don't know it yet. Does it have to do with horoscopes, well-translated badly-written fantasy novels, or Kaija Koo's lyrics? Insight, anyone?

Either way, and whatever it is, my bottom line has it that words were better when Finland celebrated her first independence day.

In other news, Free Rice is a synonyme game that lets you donate rice to starving people by studying progressively challenging English vocabulary. It can be quite addictive, especially if you're bored.