Smoking, slips and string – Swedish clothing words in English disguise

Clothing words ought to be fairly straightforward. A jumper is a jumper. A pair of shoes is a pair of shoes. A hat is a hat. But as soon as you start comparing Swedish and English, certain clothing words begin to behave suspiciously.

Take smoking.

In Swedish, smoking means an elegant formal outfit. You picture smart dinners, a bow tie and a black jacket. But in English, smoking means rökning. So if you say “He wore a smoking”, it does not sound as if he was elegantly dressed. It sounds more as if he had put on a small tobacco-related natural disaster.

In British English, the garment is usually called a dinner jacket. In American English, people often say tuxedo or tux.

And then we have slips.

In Swedish, a slips is the long piece of fabric you tie around your neck when your shirt needs company. In English, it is called a tie. The word slips does exist in English, but it means something else: slips, small mistakes or underdresses, depending on the context. So a Swede who says “I need a slips for the wedding” may create a brief but intense moment of textile confusion.

Overall is another word that looks safely English. In Swedish, an overall is a one-piece garment: a barnoverall (children’s snowsuit), an arbetsoverall (boiler suit / work overalls) or a studentoverall (student boiler suit / student overall, depending on context). In English, overalls exists, but it does not always mean the same thing.

So it is not one word, but a whole small wardrobe with several doors. If you simply say overall in English, it may be unclear whether you mean a child in winter clothes, a mechanic, a student at a party, or someone who has become trapped in a very practical fabric solution.

Then comes body.

In Swedish, a body is a close-fitting garment that often fastens at the crotch. It can be a babybody (baby bodysuit) or an item of women’s clothing. In English, people usually say bodysuit. The word body otherwise means kropp.

So the sentence “I bought a body for the baby” sounds in English much more like a crime drama than a trip to the babywear section.

And finally: string

In Swedish, string, or stringtrosor (thong / G-string), means a style of underwear with a very narrow piece of fabric at the back, often just a strap or thin strip. In English, people usually say thong or sometimes G-string, depending on the style. String primarily means snöre, tråd or sträng.

So if you say “I bought a string” in English, you probably have not said very much about underwear. You have mostly informed people that you bought a piece of string. Possibly useful, but not quite what you meant.

Change language, change wardrobe

In Swedish, these words behave exactly like Swedish words. A smoking is formalwear, a slips goes around your neck, an overall can keep a child warm, a body can be worn by a baby, and string refers to a particular underwear style.

When you switch to English, however, you also switch wardrobe. The same words may point in a different direction: smoking is about cigarettes, slips can mean slips or mistakes, body means a body, and string means string, thread or cord.

A useful rule of thumb: if a Swedish clothing word sounds English, check which English word fits that particular sentence. Language and fashion have one thing in common: it all depends on the context.