#linquistic

As I woke up this morning I remembered this one made up Finnish word exists and got unreasonably irritated about it, cleaned the whole kitchen and washed dishes, then proceeded to rant about it to my friends. So friends and followers and mislead googlers, it’s time to tackle the word

Hyppytyynytyydytys

I’m a native finnish speaker and while we have a wide variety of weird sounding words and in-language-build capability of creating new ones by just stacking different words together and calling it a day, june 11 was the first time I saw this drenched word... hyppytyynytyydytys. It was this tumblr post by a blog that is devoted of showing weird words from languages around as and which, quite frankly, lost all the credibility it has. 

[image description: hyppytyynytyydytys (n.) the pleasure and satisfaction derived from sitting (or bouncing) on a bouncy cushion: lit. “bouncy cushion satisfaction”]

Apart from the fact that for me, personally, hyppytyynytyydytys sounds like you’re jumping while humping a pillow which.. if someone’s getting off of that hey im not judging, the word makes little to no sense. While hyppytyyny is a word that exists, it usually means safety net or jumping sheet used in emergencies. Tyydytys can mean “satisfaction” but it’s use in nowadays Finn speech is “pleasure”, mostly used to describe masturbation.

[image description: a screenshot of google results to the word hyppytyynytyydytys. Several results are shown, all English]

While ranting about the word to a friend, I ended up googling it. Firstly, I could not find any Finnish results, which only cements the fact that the world is unheard inside the small 5.5 million population that is supposed to be using it. With a 5 min googling fueled by Nordquist coffee (opened 3 days ago so still fresh and round and good even though I can’t taste the promised caramel) and spite I think I’ve found the origin of this mess of a word. Behold: an abandoned forum post from 2005: 

[image description: a forum post by someone called Sophia: “On holiday trip to Finland we saw a sign in a shop window saying “huomiseksi”. Further investigations revealed that the word means ‘by tomorrow’ -which wasn’t exactly what we thought it would mean. Another word we really enjoy was “hyppytyyny” which means bouncy cushion. 50% of this word consists of the letter y. You can take it even further: hyppytyynytyydytys, “bouncy cushion satisfaction”]

source

While Sophia talks more in the chain telling how they can’t talk Finnish but enjoys listening Finnish songs from a CD they have, I can’t confirm they are the same person. However it’s clear in the first forum post that they aren’t a native speaker, with their confusion of a word “huomiseksi”. Also keeping in mind the fact that hyppytyyny doesn’t mean “bouncy cushion” but a jumping sheet, even when bouncy cushion is the literal translation, I think it’s safe to say whole word derived from a misunderstanding (or probably trolling by some finnish natives?).

That didn’t stop it being spread over the internet though

[image description: tweets from Scandinavian Kitchen and Present & Correct presenting the word hyppytyynytyydytys and it’s translation. Screencap from thefinnishteacher-blog that listed 10 weirdest Finnish words and phrases, hyppytyynytyydytys being 3rd on the list.]

PERMISSION STRUCTURES: The now-famous term comes, as far as I can tell, from a 2008 profile of David Axelrod in the New Republic, where Jason Zengerle quoted Ken Snyder, a Democratic consultant and Axelrod protege, on his mentor’s approach. “David felt there almost had to be a permission structure set up for certain white voters to consider a black candidate.” The “permission structure” relied heavily on “third-party authentication,” which is to say, endorsements from respected figures or institutions that the targeted voters admired.  If you think back to the 2008 campaign, you can see Axelrod slowly building this permission structure around Obama. Right before Super Tuesday, Axelrod rolled out the endorsements of Ted and Caroline Kennedy. Right before the election, he rolled out Colin Powell. The timing and nature of the endorsements were meant to make an African American candidate with an international upbringing and the name Barack Hussein Obama into someone that Ohio steelworkers could feel comfortable voting for. If Ted Kennedy and Colin Powell can back this guy, so can you.  The point of Obama's whole "permission structure" riff was to persuade the media to stop blaming him for Republican intransigence and begin blaming Republicans for Republican intransigence. But talking about "permission structures" sounds academic and passive — it's definitely not what LBJ would have done — and so it just gave the media a new reason to blame the president for Republican intransigence.  The basic idea of this phrase, it seems, is as follows: A doesn’t trust B to do some activity X because A fears that B does not have A’s best interests at heart in the “realm” of X.  “I cannot force Republicans to embrace … common-sense solutions,” Obama said at the press conference, referring specifically to budget gridlock. “I can urge them to. I can put pressure on them. I can rally the American people around those common-sense solutions. But ultimately, they, themselves, are going to have to say, we want to do the right thing. And I think there are members certainly in the Senate right now, and I suspect members in the House as well, who understand that deep down. But they’re worried about their politics. It’s tough. Their base thinks that compromise with me is somehow a betrayal. They’re worried about primaries. And I understand all that. And we’re going to try to do everything we can to create a permission structure for them to be able to do what’s going to be best for the country. But it’s going to take some time.”  -- Image: Rebecca Ward. permission structure, 2016. Travertine marble, Carrara marble, cast plaster, 15 ½ x 4 ½ x 6 ½ inches. Image courtesy the artist. Texts: Excerpts from the following: “So about that ‘permission structure’…” by Ezra Kelin. Published by The Washington Post, May 3, 2013. For Full Text: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/03/so-about-that-permission-structure/?utm_term=.f317e2921866 and “Obama’s ‘Permission Structure’ And His Last, Best Chance For A Budget ‘Grand Bargain’ by Brian Beutler. Published by TPM DC, May 3, 2013. For Full Text: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/obama-s-permission-structure-and-his-last-best-chance-for-a-budget-grand-bargain -- Rebecca Ward. permission structure, 2017 is included in Rebecca Ward on view at The FLAG Art Foundation June 1 - August 11, 2017.