# Norwegian: Du störer Gud/Du store Gud



## lawana

*Moderator note*: This thread has been moved from the German forum; it was there until reaching post #10  

I have found this exclamation which I believe is not actually German. It is in "The Spell of the White Elf", a short story by George Egerton (19th century), that takes place in Norway and England. Although I've found _Du_, *you*, and _Gud_, *God* in a Norwegian dictionary, I can't seem to find the word *störer,* so I've looked for it in a German dictionary, but the translation I get (sturgeon) does not fit in. It must be something like "My God!" or "You terrible God!".
Can anybody help me, please?


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## Frank78

Störer is only a noun in German and mean disturber or interferer but we need an adjective here, I think. Perhaps it's inflected in Norwegian (I don't know if they do) and you have to look for the base form.


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## lawana

"Interferer" seems logical, for the woman narrator cries out the phrase when she sees her old-time boyfriend coming to get her and marry her. It could be something like: "You, intruding God!" 
I'll try to look up the root.
Thanks!


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## Dan2

Of the major Scandinavian languages, "ö" is a letter only of Swedish.

I _think_ the phrase is interpretable in Swedish as, "You are interefering, God."


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## Demiurg

Google Translate (Norwegian => German) says: _Du großer Gott!_ 

According to an online dictionary "stor" means "large/tall" in Norwegian.


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## Dan2

"stor" does indeed mean "great" throughout Scandinavian, but I don't recognize "störer" as a form of "stor". (Scandinavian does not add -er the way German does in "ein großER Gott". And the comparative is "större.)

It may ultimately be the case that the author intended "Oh great God!", but it's definitely not (correct) Norwegian because there's no "ö" in that language. Nor would it be the normal way to say "great God" in Swedish.

For people who could confirm, try the Nordic forum.


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## Toadie

Isn't -er a universal present tense conjugation in Swedish?


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## Dan2

Toadie said:


> Isn't -er a universal present tense conjugation in Swedish?


Right.  That's why I said it was "interpretable" as "You are interfering" in Swedish.  But the -er present-tense marker is typically suppressed after -r.

An argument in favor of the "great God" interpretation: "stör-" as "interfere" appears to be a German loan, but only into Swedish, not into Norwegian.  So given that the story takes place in Norway, a misspelled and/or mis-inflected Norwegian expression seems more likely.

< Since the thread has safely arrived in the Nordic Languages forum, these words - now deleted - are no longer needed. Thank you.  >


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## Demiurg

Dan2 said:


> So given that the story takes place in Norway, a misspelled and/or mis-inflected Norwegian expression seems more likely.



I found "Du st*o*rer Gud!" in George Egerton's "Keynotes":



> I wrote to Hans Jorgen, you know, back in spring, and — Du storer Gud ! there is Hans Jorgen coming across the street!



Egerton was an Australian-born writer who lived in Norway for two years and maybe her command of the language wasn't that good.


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## Dan2

Demiurg said:


> I found "Du st*o*rer Gud!" in George Egerton's "Keynotes"
> 
> Egerton was an Australian-born writer who lived in Norway for two years and maybe her command of the language wasn't that good.


Good work. Dropping the umlaut (der für uns Störung war), and taking into account typical Australian confusion between -e (schwa) and -er, we get "Du store Gud", Norwegian for (literally) "You great God", or "Oh God!".


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## lawana

Very interesting debate, and GREAT HELP! It's what I assumed from the context.
Thank you so much!


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## Tjahzi

Wow, interesting question!

This seems like an odd mix of Swedish orthography (_ö_, as pointed out) and Norwegian/Danish grammar. Regarding the latter, on can say that, as Dan2 pointed out, when the root ends in _-r_, Swedish does not apply the standard _-Vr _present suffix, unlike Norwegian and Danish. I have actually just heard _kör _vs _kø__rer_ as an example of this, but I very much believe the same pattern should be applied to verbs such as _störa/støre_. 

Another theoretical possibility, in fact my first assumption, would be the comparative form of _stor_ (which indeed means _big)_ - _större_, but that would obviously require a major spelling mistake or a typo, neither which seems very likely.

Hence, I think we can establish that the verb must indeed be _störa/störe_ which can be translated to_ interrupt, disturb, interfer_, which, according to lawana's description would fit it. However, I must say I'm not sure if this should be interpreted as _"Oh God, you are interrupting!"_ (as directed to the old-time boyfriend or to God). Though I suppose lawana should be able to deduct that.

The last is issue here would be which language this really is, and considering the fact that the story is set to take place in Norway, we must assume it to be Norwegian (as suggested by the _-rer_ form). The only plausible explanation I can think of to why _ö _was used rather than _ø_ would be the fact that at the time, Norway was in a (more or less forced) union with Sweden and hence, it is possible that Swedish orthography was influential or to some degree imposed on the Norwegian language (one of the main reasons behind its creation was the Swedes' desire to distinguish their language from Danish, on whose orthography the Norwegian was based, and hence it's possible that this was seen as a way to "swedify" the "danifyed" Norway). 

Another possible explanation would be that this is in fact old Swedish, in which the _-Vr_ before stem ending in _-r_ has not yet been dropped, but considering the fact that the story takes place in Norway, this appears much less likely.

On a side not, in what language is the story written? English?


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## Tjahzi

After having noted the link to the keynotes, I'm afraid I've somewhat changed my opinion, or at least come up with a new theory. _Storer _could actually be an old masculine form of the adjective _stor_. Since the Old Norse masculine (nominative, singular) suffix was _-r_ (later _-ur _in Icelandic), it is possible that this pattern had lived on into the Norwegian of the mid 19th century, at least in some (rural?) dialects. Though Old Norse/Icelandic adjective roots ending in _-r_ followed the same pattern as modern Swedish verb roots ending in _-r_, that is, they dropped the _-Vr/-r _suffix that was supposed to be fixed to them, I wouldn't rule out the possibility for this to be occurring inrural Norwegian dialect of the 19th century. 
So, if we assume the above, _Du storer Gud! _would be a direct cognate of the modern (well, somewhat old fashioned) Swedish expression _(Du) store Gud! _with the approximate meaning of _Oh my God! _(The _-e_ in _store_ is the archaic masculine adjective ending, which hints that an earlier masculine suffix (which then could have been present in the Norwegian known to and used by Egerton) was likely to have contained an _e_, which fits in with the hypothesis of _storer/störer_ beingan adjective with a masculine _-er suffix_). 
The confusing part would then be why lawana's edition has _ö _where the keynotes have _o._ Theoretically, the _ö_ in _störer_ could be a result of umlaut, although I have never heard of an _e_ triggering an umlaut. That said, I wouldn't rule anything out given the possibility of it being a rural Norwegian dialect of the 19th century.


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## Havfruen

Was there a comma in the text and would that make a difference?

Du store Gud! (no comma)

Du storer, Gud! (comma necessary for this meaning?)

Assuming there was no comma, I'd lean towards "Du store Gud!"


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## Tjahzi

There was none (I initially supposed the opposite), at least not in the linked keynotes:

 I wrote to Hans Jorgen, you know, back 
in spring, and — Du storer Gud ! there is 
Hans Jorgen coming across the street!

I now realise that the _ö/ø_ of _Jörgen/Jørgen_ has been rendered _o. _So the _o _in _storer _could as well be an _ö/ø_, which means we are practically back at square zero.


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## Magb

Dan2 said:


> Good work. Dropping the umlaut (der für uns Störung war), and taking into account typical Australian confusion between -e (schwa) and -er, we get "Du store Gud", Norwegian for (literally) "You great God", or "Oh God!".



Out of all the suggestions in this thread, this one seems most plausible to me. Let me add my thoughts about the others:

*1. Du störer Gud* with an umlauted form of the adjective
As has been pointed out, there's no reason why the adjective should be umlauted. Only the comparative and superlative of the adjective have umlaut. Technically one could imagine that the -i in the Old Norse form _stóri_ could've triggered i-umlaut and given _stœri_, but I'm pretty sure the i-umlaut rule was long dead by the time that form became the masculine singular form of the adjective. Moreover, the R at the end makes no sense at all if this is the case.

*2. Du storer Gud* with -er being a masculine adjective ending
This almost makes sense, but there are two problems:
1) I'm pretty sure the -r of the masculine singular ending was long dead in all (?) Scandinavian dialects by the 19th century.
2) Even if it still existed in some obscure dialect, it would be unusual to use the strong form of the adjective here. This is a vocative construction, and those almost always use the weak form of the adjective. This can be seen even in modern expressions like _Unge mann!_ "Young man! (I'm talking to you!)"., not _Ung mann!_, which would if anything translate to "(You're a) young man!", and wouldn't really make sense.

*3. Du stører, Gud* ("You disturb, God"), with <ö> used in place of <ø> for some reason
This is possible, but in my mind the verb is more Swedish than Norwegian. In modern Norwegian the verb is _forstyrre_. Nynorskordboka does have an entry for _støre_, but it seems to have a slightly different meaning ("to tell someone to do something"). Of course, it's possible that this verb existed or exists in the dialect in question. But even so, isn't "You disturb, God!" kind of an odd thing to say? It doesn't seem to make sense in the context of the text either, whereas "Du store Gud" makes perfect sense.

So yeah, I'm pretty sure you should just pretend the <r> at the end isn't there.


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## hanne

The story can be found here here for anyone who's interested. Which shows us that the ö/o issue in Demiurg's link seems to come from the digitalisation of the book, not the author.

I don't think we should take too much notice of the ö/ø issue. I've seen old Danish texts using ö, so it's not totally unheard of (though I have no idea if it was in any way common). The main character is also spelled Hans Jörgen, so it looks like the author consistently uses ö. Probably for the pragmatic reason that ö is more common internationally, so it would have been easier to get hold of for the typesetter . Or s/he (author or typesetter) just didn't know better.

Regarding the interpretation, from the context I'd say the meaning should probably be the same as "Du store Gud!" ~ "Oh my God!". Whether the variant spelling is an error or not, I'll leave for others to speculate about .


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## mnl

I can't find any links about it, but I am pretty sure that there were serious proposals around the end of the 19th century to use both forms in Danish - ö for the open sound and ø for the closed one. Think about the difference of the sounds in dör (a door) and dør (to die). 

Following that rule the spelling "Jörgen" makes sense.


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## hanne

mnl said:


> I can't find any links about it, but I am pretty sure that there were serious proposals around the end of the 19th century to use both forms in Danish - ö for the open sound and ø for the closed one. Think about the difference of the sounds in dör (a door) and dør (to die).


I think you're around 100 years too late with that, I think it was the end of the 18th century (Rasmus Rask died 1830). Here's a a brief reference. Anyway, I only ever heard of this as a curiosity, not as anything that was anywhere near having an actual impact anywhere - least of all on foreign writers who were quoting 5 word passages.


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## Ben Jamin

mnl said:


> I can't find any links about it, but I am pretty sure that there were serious proposals around the end of the 19th century to use both forms in Danish - ö for the open sound and ø for the closed one. Think about the difference of the sounds in dör (a door) and dør (to die).


 Are these words pronounced in a different manner in contemporary Danish?


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## mnl

hanne said:


> I think you're around 100 years too late with that, I think it was the end of the 18th century (Rasmus Rask died 1830). Here's a a brief reference. Anyway, I only ever heard of this as a curiosity, not as anything that was anywhere near having an actual impact anywhere - least of all on foreign writers who were quoting 5 word passages.



You are probably right, so take this as pure curiosity on my part:

As depicted on this wikipedia page, a school book by Julie Heins used that destinction. Wikipedia claims it is printed in 1890. This page says the author began publishing her books in 1865, so I conclude that _some_ Danish school children in _some_ Danish schools have been taught the distinction at _some_ time after 1865, maybe even after 1890, if Wikipedia is to be given any credibility.

Whether teaching children from school books qualifies as "actual impact" is a whole other question, of course 

Edit: And we are (I am) drifting off topic...


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## hanne

Are we sure that the books by Ms. Heins were actually _used_? 
Nah, I'm sure they were, and I think that does qualify as "actual impact" by most definitions, so I'll revise my perception of this interesting initiative, initiated by Rask et al., which obviously lived on well after his death. And I'm happy to do so, since I think it's a quite funny story (although I'm _very_ happy it didn't catch on!).
As long as the topic is the possible use of ö/ø in Danish I think we're close enough on topic, but just to give myself an alibi, here's another observation from the text I linked yesterday:

On an earlier page (p. 79), we get "Tak for Maden tante!", which to me looks more Danish than anything else (but we're so far back in time that Norwegian probably would just be a flavour of Danish). That sentence certainly isn't Swedish, and for (modern) Norwegian I'd also expect Takk and Maten.


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