Look, a Norwegian!

[annathepiper]

Everybody say hi to ravyngyngvar, now joining my Friends list! He is my Norwegian pen pal, with whom I've been corresponding for ages and ages. We got started off on the correspondence thanks to a mutual love of Elfquest, and it's been going on ever since out of the general fact that we're both huge geeks. ;)

(Also, before anybody tells me a 36-year-old woman is too old to have a pen pal, well hey, I was 24 when the correspondence started! And, as my frequent gushing over GBS and Mr. Crowe exhibits, I'm a teenybopper at heart anyway. So there.)

Of interest to Seattle-area locals, he will be coming to visit MurkNorth in the middle of next month. So you'll be able to say hi to him in person as well!

HI YNGVAR!

Comments

[howlinhobbit.livejournal.com]

before anybody tells me a 36-year-old woman is too old to have a pen pal
I sure don't know what that's all about. Correspondence between friends hasn't got age limits. It has a long tradition behind it as well.

Just my tuppence.

HH

[ravyngyngvar.livejournal.com]

Thankyouthankyou!

If 36 is too old to have a pen pal, how about 41? But I still can't really think of myself as a "man" rather than a "boy."

Or rather, "guy." You know, I don't really think Norwegian has a word as versatile as that.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Feh. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson didn't start until they had both been President and then gotten over their differences.... and they did it until they both passed.

I'd say "keyboard pal" is more appropriate these days, but it's longer to type.

Welcome.

[annathepiper]

Heh, but I bet Adams and Jefferson never called one another "pen pals". ;) There needs to be a better word for this. "Correspondent" is too linked with "reporter" in English now, I think.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

English is such a sucky language. It's a bastard to learn, irregular as hell, and *oh* the word origin! It's a muddled jumble of German, Latin, Greek, Geek, Jive, and Yiddish, mangled up in tangled up knots!

*/rant*

"Net friend"?

[annathepiper]

I have always giggled at this quote about English: "English doesn't borrow words and phrases from other languages. English follows other languages down dark alleys, mugs them and goes through their pockets for loose grammar." It's so very apt. ;)

And yeah, "net friend" is kind of closer to the concept. "Online friend", also.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

*snerk* That's a good one. Think I'll steal it. :)

[annathepiper]

Heh! And we have of course since learned that the quote is james_nicoll's. Which still amuses me. It's such a SMALL Internet, and getting smaller all the time!

[annathepiper]

You are most welcome. :)

And as I said to Scott--mostly I am amused since people usually think of kids in school having pen pals, not adults. I think I'm the only person of my age I've ever heard actually use those words for a regular correspondent!

As for man vs. boy, hey, I think of myself as a "girl" all the time. I'm hoping it'll stand me in good stead in another twenty or thirty years. If I think young, I'll keep being it. ;)

[annathepiper]

*grin* Yeah, but my point is more that I never hear anyone my age actually use the words "pen pal" to describe a correspondent. ;) It's always been more of a high-school-era kind of phrase, in my experience. Thank you for the kind words, though!

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

Hi, Yngvar! You may also want to meet scieppan, who's a novelist focusing on Scandinavian culture, and mrissa, a Norwegian-American with very deep roots in the culture -

[ravyngyngvar.livejournal.com]

Which may be more than I have. :-)

Thanks for the links, though. I'll check them out.

[janne.livejournal.com]

Those norwegians are everywhere ;)

[annathepiper]

Crafty, aren't they? ;)

[shikyrie.livejournal.com]

36 is too old to have a pen-pal... oh wait, I'm 37.. what am I talking about?

[mikekn]

Hi Yngvar! Good to "see" you here :)

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

*waves without tryin to pronounce the name*

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

I have randomly added you to my friends list. I hope this isn't a problem.

[annathepiper]

Not at all, and welcome to my journal. :)

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

You come with good references, heh!

[annathepiper]

Awww gosh. :) Well, glad to have you aboard! I've seen you hanging out over on firni's journal, too.

[ex-the-epic80.livejournal.com]

I don't just hang out. I add to the decorum!

[annathepiper]

firni's journal has decorum? Since when? >:)

Pen Pal age limit?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm 43 and have a variety of pen pals..tho' some "letters" are on tape..from all over the planet. It's a blast,and I enjoy it..The Post Office voted me "Gets(and sends) Weirdest Mail" a while back.Do a search under mail art-I've met a lot of my pen/ magnetized rust-coated-plastic pals this way...Scott

Re: Pen Pal age limit?

[annathepiper]

Well, my whole point is sort of that "pen pal", in my experience, has always been a sort of term that one usually associates with kids in school--not with adults!