Also In Defense and Offense of English

Like many places, Sweden borrows from English and the U.S., often only borrowing junk though, and thus supporting the prejudice that the U.S. itself is junk.

To remedy this I suggest we begin borrowing better things. Instead of phrases and phonemes that don't fit Swedish, instead of words we already have words for, instead of idioms we've misunderstood and wrongly use, let us borrow the present continuous tense. [1]

With the present continuous tense Swedes could better express ongoing processes, instead of so frequently relying on analytical constructions with adverbs and other verb modifiers. Having only the present simple tense, Swedes must state what a present happens, which they can reveal as a continuous process only by tacking an imprecise modifier to comment on the verb. In English, with the present continuous tense, and awareness of what is happening and can be happening at all times or ongoing beyond our regular sense of time, can be achieved by using a smart grammatical structure called the present continuous tense.

So if we do insist on mixing our Swedish with English, may we insist on something beautifully alien and hopefully intelligent, something that would reach below our superficial contact with English and its most timely and gaudy expressions. Let us borrow a grammatical structure that enriches our language as well as our worldview. Let us borrow something that our language deprives us of the ability to directly observe. With the present continuous tense in Swedish we could focus on what is happening, rather than focusing on what happens.


Note:
[1] "phrases and phonemes that don't fit Swedish": mejla (to email someone) and Frankensteinian words like hårspray (hairspray), partaj (party), okaya (to accept), fejka (to fake) and grapefrukt (grapefruit)
"words we already have words for": fejs (ansikte; face), backslash (bakåtstreck), chatta (to chat; snacka, småprata), raid (räd), betta på ett objekt [*shudder] (to bet on smth; bjuda på ett föremål, slå vad), replya (to reply; svara), allround (allsidig), partya (to party; festa, svira, supa), approach (synsätt, tillvägagångssätt) random (slumpmässig; as in this common expression "det var helt random liksom"), baby (barn; but "baby" is used to mean 'small children stores have learned they can make more money off of by using the English word on their products'), policy (politik, riktlinje), city (stad, centrum), coach [sounds quite disgusting in Swedish in my opinion] (handledare) and
"idioms we've misunderstood and wrongly [ehem] use": "after work" (happy hour), "drive-in" (drive-thru), "backslick" (slick-back), "trafficking" (human trafficking), "babylift" [Denmark] (stroller, pram; not a baby elevator, which by the way would be interesting to see), I also hear "air condition" (air conditioning) frequently and wonder what particular meteorological aspect people are referring to.

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