Do you speak Ikea?

I found this article in the Guardian and thought that it was kind of interesting.
"It involves learning Swedish and a lot of Scandinavian place names, unfortunately, but that accomplished you will never again be fooled into thinking that Julfrid could ever be a dining table rather than a straw goat. For Ikea product names follow a system: because the company's founder, Ingvar Kamprad, is dyslexic, he found that naming products with proper names and words made them easier to identify.

Sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves, media storage and doorknobs are named after places in Sweden (Klippan, Malmö); beds, wardrobes and hall furniture after places in Norway; carpets after places in Denmark and dining tables and chairs after places in Finland. Bookcases are mainly occupations (Bonde, peasant farmer; Styrman, helmsman). Bathroom stuff is named after lakes and rivers.

Kitchens are generally grammatical terms, and kitchen utensils are spices, herbs, fish, fruits, berries, or functional words such as Skarpt (it means sharp, and it's a knife). Chairs and desks are Swedish men's names (Roger, Joel); materials and curtains are women's names. Children's items are mammals, birds and adjectives."

6 comments:

jill b said...

Huh, I never knew that! I'll feel so much more educated the next time I get lost in our local Ikea!

Jack Steiner said...

Hi Jill,

Happy to be of service.

JJ said...

I did not know that! I really thought those names were just, you know...names. Interesting factoid, Jack!

Jack Steiner said...

RR,

I found it to be kind of interesting. I always wondered what those names meant.

Miss Worldwide said...

What will happen when they run out of words?

Jack Steiner said...

They'll have to make a lot of stuff of that to happen.

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