Ex:
"Jag är gift" = I am married
"Jag tar gift" = I take poison
So "gift" means both married and poison. Both meanings are pronouced the same way too. Does this hint at some sapir-whorfian quality of the swedish mind?
Statistics seems to agree; Sweden has the third highest divorce rate of the world*. 64% of all marriages end in divorce, compared to e.g. 53% in the UK, 49% in the USA and 41% in Germany.
Swedish is supposedly also the only language with the word "lagom", which roughly means "just right". Ex:
"Det här är för mycket" = This is too much
"Det här är för lite" = This is too little
"Det här är lagom" = This is just right
"Lagom är bäst" (proverb), ="just right" is best, i.e. don't try too hard, OK is enough.
Obviously you can express the idea of "lagom" in English but it's a little more awkward.
So does this imply that swedes are divorce prone unperfectionists?
*Source: http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsWorld.shtml