IKEA: linguistics, esthetics, engineering, part 2
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Some assembly required.
From Olaf Zimmermann:
(source [2002 no. 5])
Olaf remarks:
By the late '70s IKEA had been very well established in W-Germany (I was living in Munich at the time) and had already become part of popular culture in more senses than one.
I found the basis for the content of the painting here.
Note that these ELKTÅUER instructions come with a few words, though mine for NEIDEN had not a single word. Instead I had arrows and fingers pointing to where parts should be inserted and also directionality, including circular movement.
For those who are skeptical about the difficulty of putting furniture together following this kind of directions, with your mind's eye try to mentally assemble ELKTÅUER according to what you see in the drawing.
Swedish inte lätt / German nicht einfach!
It's no wonder that, as kararina described in this comment, it took two young men 12 hours to complete the assembly of her new IKEA "davenport" (her name for the "day bed" she just acquired).
Selected readings
- "IKEA: linguistics, esthetics, engineering" (3/8/25)
- "Following Directions", The Language Fix (1/27/09)
Jonathan Smith said,
March 11, 2025 @ 12:08 pm
Well wow… I am a proud owner of the ELKTÅUER! Humming along to this day… I found assembly a breeze but YMMV.
S Frankel said,
March 11, 2025 @ 12:40 pm
G*d*m thing won't even load a Finnish operating system like Linux.
Philip Taylor said,
March 11, 2025 @ 12:46 pm
Not surprising, M. Frankel — the Finno-Ugric family is very different from the North-Germanic family to which Swedish belongs !
Chris Button said,
March 11, 2025 @ 4:34 pm
IKEA used to be a client of mine during my ad/media agency days. I absolutely loved working with them. This was in the USA, so everyone had to learn the correct pronunciations of things (or at least close approximations). I fondly remember explaining to someone why Kivik being pronounced in Swedish more like Shivik was perfectly reasonable and quite in accordance with the spelling.
Scott P. said,
March 11, 2025 @ 4:34 pm
I'm guessing the ELKTÅUER is what the Swedes use to key an eye on all the elk.
KeithB said,
March 11, 2025 @ 4:53 pm
Lego instructions are the same way.
Mike Anderson said,
March 11, 2025 @ 5:23 pm
We've all heard of idiot-proofing designs (God will provide an improved idiot). IKEA has flipped the script with bone fide idiot inducing instructions
Steve Morrison said,
March 11, 2025 @ 8:19 pm
Although Linus Torvalds actually belongs to Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority.