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It's widely known that Texas is known for its slang. The state is home to a slew of Southern colloquialisms as well as totally unique sayings you won't hear anywhere else.
But did you know that the word “Texas” is a slang word in itself?
According to Texas Monthly, Norwegians have long used the word "Texas" in lieu of the word "crazy."
Think that last statement is hogwash?
Just look at this headline from a Norwegian sports website, VG Sporten:
"Det var helt Texas" roughly translates to "It was completely Texas." "Det var helt Texas" is used here to emphasize the unforgettable craziness of the soccer match and the "fantastic stemning" (fantastic atmosphere).
Crazy — or should we say helt Texas — huh?
A few of the ways Texas Monthly has found that Norwegians have been using “Texas” as well as some examples we found from around the web:
- To describe the miracle that was a Norwegian marine biologist finding a swordfish, native to tropical waters, in Norway:
Note: Norwegians, please forgive the above, likely rough Google and Twitter translations.
To explain the language phenomenon, Texas Monthly cited a Tumblr which claimed that Norwegian slang word has a lot to do with its association to the wild west and Western shoot-em-up movies. Another web travelogue on the internet explained it this way: "In Norwegian, 'texas' means mayhem and chaos, as in cowboys punching each other and breaking chairs over each other's heads."
In a Reddit string entitled "Norwegians on Texas," one Reddit user wrote that when he uses the expression "Det var helt Texas," he pictures a "cowboy crashing a party and shooting two revolvers into the air."
It's certainly not the most current of cultural references and can certainly lead to negative connotations, but it might be worth noting that the idiom is a largely old one. Some speculate that the idiom has been in use since at least the 1970s.
What say y’all? What does “helt Texas” (“totally Texas”) mean to you? Should we start saying “It’s totally Norwegian” to get back at Norway? What would that even mean?
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