Okay, I’m done sorting my longtime personal secretary’s books and it’s back to the blogosphere with me. Seriously, I don’t know how Andrew does this everyday. Just keeping up with the email is killing me-don’t get me wrong, You People. I’m enjoying the hell out of this. I’m even enjoying the hate mail-and, I’m sorry haters, but you’ll have to work a bit harder if you want me to lock myself in the bathroom and cry. I get hate mail every day at Savage Love, my syndicated sex advice column, that puts the the pathetic mewlings of Michelle “I Hear Dead People” Malkin’s fans to shame.
-posted by Dan.
I’M INCOMPETENT: Well, it’s official. I’m a big, dumb dope. I got tons of responses to my query about the meaning of the Danish word/term SLUTSPURT, which my longtime personal secretary can be seen standing next to in a photo posted below. The photo was taken in Copenhagen, where we recently spent a few days. A lot of helpful, informed people wrote in to share the definition with me-a lot of different definitions. Apparently SLUTSPURT means different things to different people.
Anyhow, I copied the many definitions of SLUTSPURT that came in, pasted them into a document, deleted the original emails, and then somehow managed to the delete the document too. Whoops. I have just one email left:
I don’t know the literal translation for “SLUTSPURT”, but in practice it means “BIG SALE!” My other favorite, when I lived in Koebenhavn, was “BADFART”, or “BOAT EXCURSION.”-Ryan
Thanks for sharing, Ryan, but some of the other definitions were a bit more fun. According to other readers, SLUTSPURT literally means, if I can remember correctly, “big finish,” “final push,” and “end explosion.” In Denmark you only hear the word in stores during the final days of a sale, whereas in America you sometimes here it in, er, slightly more salacious circumstances-and there’s usually a comma after “slut,” an exclamation point after “spurt,” and it sounds rather like an order.
-posted by Dan.
THAT’S NO MULLET: My longtime personal secretary insisted on a clarification: sometimes he sorts my books. We’re versatile. Oh, and he doesn’t have a mullet! He’s wearing a hat and has long hair, and the pixilation makes it look rather mullet-esque, it’s true, but it’s an optical illusion.
-posted by Dan.
I’M INCOMPETENT II: Yesterday I posted a picture of a tree full of pacifiers that my LPS and I stumbled across in Copenhagen. We couldn’t figure out what was up, and none of the Danes we asked had any idea. Since Andrew is always going on about how brainy and resourceful You People are, I tossed the photo on the website and asked for your help.
Well, it turns out it’s not a memorial to Denmark’s murdered children, my LPS’ first guess, nor is it, as many of You People speculated, a memorial to Denmark’s aborted children. And it’s not, as Kurt from Trevose, PA, speculated, a drug culture thing. (“I understand that people into Ecstasy use pacifiers when they’re rolling to alleviate the dry mouth,” Kurt wrote. “Perhaps there was a rave in Denmark and what you saw was its aftermath.”) The answer is basically what I suspected-and the answer was literally at my fingertips. As one reader pointed out…
PACIFIER + TREE + DENMARK x GOOGLE = ANSWER!
There’s a nice run-down on Danish “suttetræ,” or pacifier-trees, here. A snip:
Frederiksberg Garden is, like all parks, a favored place for pushing strollers. It is thick with infants and toddlers at any time of year. At some point, some Danish mother must have said to her child, “Skat, you’re old enough to stop using your pacifier now, aren’t you? Yes, you’re all grown up, now! But I don’t want you to give it to me. I want you to give it to that tree, and I want you to promise the tree that you’ll never use a pacifier again because now you’re a big grown up!” Maybe that’s not how it started. In any case, that’s what happens now, according to the women I spoke to. The babies of Frederiksberg are weaned off their pacifiers by giving them to the tree and promising the tree never to use them again.
Another reader sent me this very sweet letter…
Obviously, you have by now figured out that your longtime personal secretary is wrong about the binki tree in Frederiksberg. The best thing about the existence of this binki tree is that it is-in typical Danish fashion-explained very earnestly in a brochure put out by the government.
In the brochure, the county explains all the best ways for people to help their children kick the nasty binki habit, explaining that a new stuffed animal, emotional support from parents and siblings, or a visit to the binki tree might all be helpful.
Must not be anything terribly rotten in a county where the government can put out brochures about getting rid of pacifiers! I remember hearing about binkie trees growing up in Denmark, but I managed to get rid of mine without visiting the local tree. (Oh, and the sign in the window, it literally means final (slut) sprint (spurt). It would ususally refer to the final round of price markdowns in a big sale.)-Mogens
So how come none of the adult Danes I spoke with-hip young employees at our hotel, young and young-ish gay guys we met at the bars-knew anything about the pacifier trees?
I don’t really know how the tradition evolved, but I think it happened within the last 10-15 years. It certainly didn’t exist when I was a kid…. I live in the second-largest city, Aarhus, and we have a few here too. Should you visit this corner of the world one day, wanting to witness this bizarre phenomenon, head for “Dyrehaven” in the forests of Moesgaard.-Mikkel
Now everything is illuminated-except why it didn’t occur to ME to go to Google and type in “pacifier” and and “tree” and “Denmark.” Like I said on the first day, I am a Luddite through and through. When something stumps me, my first response is not to jump on Google, but to start asking around.
Still, while I may have exposed myself to be a non-tech-savvy geek, without my idiocy and incompetence I wouldn’t have been treated to so many letters from around the world about Denmark’s suttetræ phenomenon.
My kid is long past the pacifier stage, but I think the pacifier tree tradition is a wonderful idea and should be adopted by American parents. First, I think it would really help get kids to let go of their pacifiers-if the tree communicates anything to little kids it’s that TONS of other kids have already given up their pacifiers. They’re big kids now, don’t you want to be a big kid too? Kids seem to have an instinctive connection with/love for trees-a throwback to the origin of our species, perhaps?-so building this charming ritual around a sprawling, welcoming tree is a stroke of genius. Central Park in Chicago needs a binki tree, Lincoln Park in Chicago needs a binki tree, Volunteer Park in Seattle needs a binki tree. American parents, let’s get this sweet tradition of the ground here.
-posted by Dan.
The Dish 