The Shoehorn Contest Reconsidered

You may recall the contest in April to translate the message on the wooden shoehorn pictured above and to guess the language.

I have recently heard from a reader in Norway, who writes:

As a Norwegian I'm sorry to say you have awarded the wrong winner of your contest. The text written on the shoehorn "Den vet best hvor skoen trykker, som har den på" is for sure Norwegian. The translation to English will be like this: The one who wears the shoe is the one who knows best where it is squeezing (the toes).

Bonnie (via Google) is not much to blame for the mistake because Norwegian and Danish are very closely related languages. It’s just one letter in the second word in the text that clearly identifies it to be Norwegian and not Danish.

In Danish it most probably will be written like this: "Den ved best hvor skoen trykker, der har den på". I'm not sure but I think it will be possible also in Danish to use "som" instead of "der" after the comma. So it's the use of the letter t instead of a d in the second word that identifies it for me to be Norwegian and not Danish.

So Mr. Betula the Viking has to judge that Karl Friedrich Gauss is the real winner of the contest, but that Hermione has one of nicest blogs he has seen on the web.

A big thank you to Mr. Betula for the translation and explanation, as well as his kind words about my blog. He has also provided a link to an interesting website that describes the painting technique. I'm convinced!

So Karl Friedrich Gauss guessed the language correctly, and is awarded 2 swats to give to the lucky bottom of his choice.

Mr. Betula wins five spanks for his translation, and I hope he visits again.

RPT and Bonnie have, I presume, already enjoyed their prizes, and unfortunately spankings are not returnable, so I'm not going to ask for them back.