As a new student in Lund there are many local expressions to learn. Lundagård asks the embarrasing questions so that you won’t have to.
What is Lundagård?
Lundagård is Lund’s oldest park, a bus stop and a handball team. It is also Sweden’s oldest and best student news magazine, which you are holding in your hand at this very moment.
What is a sitting (sittning)?
A sitting is a three course dinner party in a student fashion. Songs, wine, and an occasional speech are standard procedure. The tradition comes with an aperitif before dinner and an “in between” party when the plates have been cleared and you have sung your way through the songbook. After that, a night club event kicks off. Sittings are arranged in most of the nations and they can be booked by organizations or groups of friends.
Why do all lecturers arrive a quarter of an hour late?
The academic quarter grants all students and lecturers an quarter of an hour additional sleep in the morning. At evening activities such as sittings, a double quarter may apply permitting you to come half an hour late to the party, which according to tradition is for you to have time to change to your dress suit and run off to your lecture after the church bell having tolled. However, if the advertisement says “prickprick”, the academic quarter does not apply.
Why do some students run around in coveralls?
This is a phenomenon mainly related to students of technology. Sometime during the 60s or 70s, dress suits were becoming too expensive and the students substituted them with hilarious coveralls. Nowadays, the aim is to make the coverall as unrecognizable as possible during your years as a student. This aim is reached by the means of dirt, symbols or patches from other coveralls which are subject for exchange after having exchanged body fluids for instance.
How good do you have to be in bed in order to deserve the title of sex master (sexmästare)?
A sex master has to be a good organizer of parties, since that’s what a sex master does. The sex master is responsible for nations’ and other organizations’ bigger parties. Sexual credentials shouldn’t come in to play at the time of election for this position.
Why do citizens of Lund talk the way they do?
For many years, Lund University has attracted people from all corners of Sweden, which is a contributing factor to the Lund dialect having been exposed to external stimuli and making it sound in a certain way. The dialect is considered slightly more academic, and according to the very citizens of Lund, it’s slightly more high-class than other variants of Scanian accents.
Is a doctoral candidate a medical student?
A doctoral candidate is a post-graduate research student having attained a level of 240 credits and completed a Master’s degree. Thus, he or she doesn’t have to be a medical student, but could in fact be making research studies within almost any subject area, such as drainage technology or French prepositions.
Text: Annika Wilhelmsson
Translation: Maximilian Aleman Tennell
First published in Lundagård nr 6/2010.
