Lagom

Lagom is a word from the Swedish, for which there is no direct translation into German. Also, the Norwegian ( and the two written languages ​​Bokmål and Nynorsk ) knows the word.

Lagom referred to one in Sweden widespread attitude to many things: dislike of extremes, favoring the healthy mediocrity. Lagom means as much as " just right ", just not too much and not too little. So Astrid Lindgren leaves in her novel Emil i Lönneberga ( Emil of Maple Hills ) Emil's mother say when the father then asked how she was doing the " köttbullar " ( meatballs ) for the Stationary: " Lagom stora, lagom runda och lagom bruna " ( so big, round and brown, as they must be ). For example, it would usually viewed in Sweden as positive if the weather is lagom hot on holiday, to get on the highway lagom rapidly advancing and the portions are large lagom in the restaurant.

According to a myth of expression go to the process of around continuous drinking horn or cup back, which should contain exactly so much that everyone in the round can drink a lot of it once and the same - the whole team, probably sitting around the campfire, so " laget om " ( mutatis mutandis translate as " once for the whole team " ), shortened to " lagom ".

Lagom (usually " laghum " written ) was the earlier form of the dative plural of lag ( law; proper order ), had to be said has pointed to no legal prescription. Today's meaning is more attenuated and, in addition, " according to right order", the importance of " fit ", " neither too little nor too much ."