# seitsemäntoista



## NilsH

I have heard that this is some kind of mild swearing in Finnish. I don't have a particular context, I was just told that the word exists and has something to do with the number 17.

/Nils


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## ricardo_jokinen

Maybe your confused with estonian "12 months"?

Kakstaestkuud?

LOL


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## tilman

Hi.

There is a spelling mistake. In Finnish, 17 means seitsemäntoista (and not seitsementoista)!

No idea about Estonian, but in Finnish seitsemäntoista is JUST a number and not a swearing word.


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## Ragsy

Swedish-speaking Finns use the Swedish word for 17, sjutton, as a mild swearing word here in Finland


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## NilsH

Ragsy said:


> Swedish-speaking Finns use the Swedish word for 17, sjutton, as a mild swearing word here in Finland


Would they do it when speaking Finnish, too, or just when speaking Swedish? 

Since we use it in Swedish, I was thinking that 1) the Finns had adopted the usage from Swedish to Finnish or 2) the guy who told me was totally mistaken.

/Nils


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## Ragsy

No we wouldn't ever use it in Finnish, just in Swedish.

Now that I've thought about it more you can use the word for 16(kuusitoista) together with the swear word "helvetti", however it's not a mild expression and you can't use the word for 16 alone.

For example: "Voi helvetin kuus(i)toista!" (lit. Oh hell's sixteen!)


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## tilman

Personally, I've never heard any number in conjunction with swearing... If 16 is used for this purpose, it can't be too common...


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## Hakro

tilman said:


> Personally, I've never heard any number in conjunction with swearing... If 16 is used for this purpose, it can't be too common...


Among guys of your age it may be uncommon but I've heard it many times, even lately. Google gives nearly 7000 hits, for example this one.


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## NilsH

7000 hits looks impressive. Since I speak no Finnish at all, I could recognise sjutton and seitsemän, and the article author is from the Helsinki newspaper... 

Thank you all for your contributions. Now I can say at least a couple of swearing phrases in Finnish!


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