Den Jaevla Naboen

He’s of Norwegian descent, this friend of mine, Mr. At A Slower Pace. A viking heritage I have teased him over the years and he has proudly, chucklingly so, accepted it. Flaunted it, even.

A number of years ago he made a visit to the homeland of his people. He returned bearing a gift for his chum, me. A tee-shirt with foreign words, foreign words to me, not Norwegians, scrawled across the front, ‘Den Jaevla Naboen’. Neither of us knew the meaning of the words but much enjoyed saying the words aloud. I wore the shirt with much satisfaction and delight.


June 1994

I was en route to vacation with friends at a Mediterranean coastal destination and was aboard an international flight. The language capabilities of an international flight, one could assume, would be robust. It was amongst such a diverse crowd that I walked down the aisle in the airplane wearing the shirt emblazoned with ‘den jaevla naboen.’ Two folks, very possibly grandparenting sorts, flagged me down to chuckle at the verbiage.

“I’m busted, right,” I asked. By their effusive laughing and gesticulating I suspected that something was unintentionally amiss.

“Yeah, right,” said the old guy laughing, “Busted.”

His spouse spoke Swedish which has many similarities to Norwegian. If you’ll please pardon the vulgarities, it was explained to me that the shirt said, ‘f___ your neighbor.’


I was embarrassed. Following that trip I wore the foul language shirt only amongst my non-Norwegian speaking citizens.
-klem