Vet du hvorfor svensken stiller seg foran vinduet når det lyner?
Svar: Han tror han blir tatt bilde av.
Do you know why a Swede stands in front of the window when there’s lightening?
Answer: He thinks he’s getting his picture taken.
Without the ability to interpret from context, Swedish behavior becomes routinized and unreflective. Just as the routinized misinterpretation of a lightning storm as a photography session can be dangerous, so can other kinds of conventionalized and automatic thinking:
Vet du hvordan du får en enarmet svenske ned fra ei flaggstang?
Svar: Du vinker til ham...
Do you know how you get a one-armed Swede down from a flagpole?
Answer: You wave at him…
According to this joke, so entrenched in convention is the Swede that even a one-armed man in exceptional circumstances will unwittingly endanger his life to follow habit.
Other jokes pertaining to common sense refer to deficits in Swedish spatial-mathematical reasoning.
Det var en gang to svensker som skulle måle hvor høy en flaggstang var, men så visste de ikke hvordan de skulle gjøre det.
Akkurat da kom det en norske forbi. Han sa:
"Den letteste måten er å hogge ned flaggstanga og måle den etterpå."
Da norsken hadde gått sa den ene svensken:
"For en idiot! Det er jo ikke lengden vi skal måle. Det er høyden...!"
One time there were two Swedes who wanted to measure how tall a flagpole was, but they didn’t know how to do it.
Just then, a Norwegian came by. He said:
“The easiest way is to cut down the flagpole and measure it afterwards.”
When the Norwegian had left, the one Swede said:
“What an idiot! It’s not the length we want to measure. It’s the height..!”
Here, the Swede is mentally unable to make the transfer of an object from vertical to horizontal space. His reasoning is constrained by his perceptual experience of the flagpole as a vertical object, not facilitated by logic and abstract principles. Similarly, in this next joke, there is a problem with abstract reasoning:
En svenske var på pizzarestaurant:
"Skal jeg dele pizzaen i fire eller åtte stykker", spurte servitøren.
"Bare i fire takk", svarte svensken. "Jeg tror ikke jeg orker åtte."
A Swede was at a pizza restaurant.
“Shall I divide the pizza in four or eight pieces?” asked the server.
“Just four, thanks,” answered the Swede, “I don’t think I can eat eight.”
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