Friday, November 7, 2008

Norwegian headlines

This one is for my American readers. :-)

Newspapers in this country have printed various foreign newspaper and magazine covers over the past few days as part of their coverage of the election results. I'm sure some, hopefully many, American papers have done the same. But Norway is - fortunately - a tiny insignificant nation on the edge of nowhere, and our newspapers are of little interest to anyone but ourselves ... so I'm sure you won't have seen any Norwegian cover stories anywhere. Which is why I thought I'd share these. I thought it might be nice to see some physical evidence that people here are happy for you too. :-) Plus that bottom cover is actually really cool design-wise too.

This first one is from Dagbladet, which is the second largest print newspaper in the country. Online I think they're the biggest. It is a tabloid, in every sense of the word, published daily. On November 5th, however, they actually published two issues. That pretty much never happens. When their regular issue went to the printers the result of the election wasn't clear, so later in the day they published this second ... we might as well say celebratory issue.

My translation:
'A longed-for change'
Obama crushed McCain
LANDSLIDE TONIGHT
Here is the US' new first family
This is how the US will be under Obama

This second one is kind of clever. :-) Plus, the design is actually really nifty.

This is from Aftenposten, which is what, the third biggest paper, but the most prestigious and respected one. The one where you're surprised to find a typo. ;-) It is a tabloid in format only and is published twice daily on weekdays, mornings only on weekends.

The headline is a kind of pun. The United States of America in Norwegian is Amerikas forente stater. Wheras forandre, as you see here, means change. So it's a kind of double pun since change is the word Obama himself has used so much. To keep that double meaning in transferring this headline to English, I would translate it as The Altered States of America. :-)

Well ... nifty, anyway. :-)

Have a great weekend. :-)

7 comments:

Fifty K said...

Those are great. Thanks for sharing!! I can honestly say I don't ever recall reading any stories or headlines from a paper from your neck of the woods so thanks. Now I can say I have ;)

Paz said...

'This one is for my American readers.'
Are the rest of us readers of your posts not supposed to read this :), if its any consolation I only glanced thro' it :)

Leisha Camden said...

Everyone is allowed to read this post, but honestly, I genuinely think it is of primary interest to Americans. Next time there's an election in Ireland I will post all the cover stories in all the Norwegian papers and label the post 'for my Irish readers' ... ;-)

Paz said...

LOL, I don't think that our elections would make the Norwegian papers, we have had 2 women presidents and won't have enough enough black eligible for another generation and if papers have a headline the word corruption will appear somewhere.

Leisha Camden said...

I don't think that our elections would make the Norwegian papers,

Yes, I made that promise in full confidence that I will never have to live up to it. ;-)

Actually, your elections will probably make the papers, but, well, let's say they're not quite front page material ...

Leisha Camden said...

I mean in Norway. Obviously. :-)

Paz said...

Obviously. also not on page 3(on the tabloids if ye have the same phenomenon), somewhere between starsigns and quick crossword