Jun 10, 2007 19:35
16 yrs ago
English term

tough guy

English to Norwegian Other Slang Norwegian youth, college and street slang
Hello. I'm interested in and am doing research on Norwegian youth, street and college slang. I recently posted this question and graded, but I still had more questions for the translators regarding this term. What is Norwegian slang for "tough guy" besides "råskinn, hardhaus, harding, tøffing and barsking, and toeff type"?
Can I use expressions like, "toeff fyr", "hard fyr" and "hard negl" to mean "tough guy" in Norwegain slang? Please let me know. Thank you. :D

Discussion

Bjørnar Magnussen Jun 13, 2007:
The words "buse" and "busemann" exist in Norwegian. It is derived from German "Butz" and denotes a big, brutal man. However, it is rarely used in youth slang.
Mavericker (X) (asker) Jun 13, 2007:
Question for all translators Hello Per and Bjørnar. In Swedish there's a word, "buse" which is a slang for "tough guy" and In Danish, there's the term, "bisse". What's the Norwegian equivalent of "buse/bisse"?
Per Bergvall Jun 10, 2007:
Because it just needs a sideways shift, something for which men are famous, to mean the 'hardest part of a guy'. You need to be a dentist to realise that this is your teeth.

Proposed translations

1 hr
Selected

seig fyr / seig type / seiging

"Seig" means "to be able to endure a lot", i.e. in sports or computer games.
Example sentence:

isåfall driver jeg på han på pc'n til brodern nå, har småproblemer. seig type, får'n max på 50% uten og helt skjønne taktikken mot han

Så han kjørte chins engang også, ganske seig fyr!

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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Hello-I like all the answers given by you and Per, but I have to pick one set of answers."
+2
36 mins

tøffing

Besides "råskinn, hardhaus, harding, tøffing and barsking, and tøff type", there isn't much else to dig up. Yoy can use tøff fyr and hard negl to say the same thing with a furrin' twist, and hard fyr if you want to enter a slightly pornographic angle into the equation.
It's really kinda funny that tough guy seems to have about eleventeen different permutations in Norwegian, when it's really the other way around - there must be a dozen US EN expressions that would inevitably end up as the lame 'tøffing' due to the lacking richness of the Norwegian street slang.
Note from asker:
Hello-thank you responding. Why would "hard fyr" have a pornographic edge, if it literally means "hard guy"?
Peer comment(s):

agree Bjørnar Magnussen : "Hard negl" is a tough negotiator or competitor - in my opinion not a typical youth slang expression.
32 mins
agree absciarretta
2 days 12 hrs
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