[vidarh]

My French-teacher in Norway told me this story as a way of relating how terse Norwegians tended to be relative to the French. She insisted it was about someone she knew, but I have no idea if it's true:

A Norwegian husband took his French wife to live in Norway. She was at home while he went to work, and after a few months he invited another couple home to dinner. Most of the conversation happened in French or English as she had not yet picked up much Norwegian, but when leaving, she wanted to try.

After they left, the husband asked her "why did you say 'pose' when they were leaving?" She asked if she'd gotten it wrong - it was what the cashiers always said as she was leaving the shop, so she'd assumed it was "goodbye". (for the non-Norwegians: 'pose' means bag, as in a shopping bag; they were asking if she wanted one) The idea that a one word utterance as she was leaving could be an insignificant question rather than wishing her good bye had not crossed her mind.

[Broken_Hippo]

Thank you for this - I got quite a giggle. I'm living in Norway and am from the states, and I sometimes do weird stuff like that. Lots of laughs from stuff like that, and I'm quite happy the spouse is Norwegian to laugh and explain that stuff.

[Symbiote]

It was days rather than months, but I had similar confusion in Denmark over cashiers asking if I'd like the receipt as I was leaving.

Of course, with the additional difficulty of Danish pronunciation, I wasn't able to search for the words, and didn't try and repeat them.

(pose → purse, if you like to learn with cognates.)