Mitä tämä sana tarkoitta? puhukieli

[nO nAmE]

Voisitko jolu selittää mitä sana "vehtaaminen" tarkoittaa? Urbaanin sanakirjan mukaan se tarkoittaa "seksiä kaikissa muodoissa", mutta pelkään, että tämä ei sovi. Kiitos etukäteen.

[AldenG]

I don't know but I used Google to go looking at how it is used. In general it seems to be used the way English playing around, messing around would be used. It appears in a wide variety of contexts having to do with currencies, geopolitical meddling, cars, taking symptoms of illness seriously or not (I wouldn't mess around treating symptoms instead of the underlying illness) and all kinds of things. So to me it looks like a general-purpose "messing around without being serious" that can also be applied to casual sexual activity.

[EP]

I always told my kids "lopettakaa se vehtaaminen" when they were rolling over each other on the sofa, pinching each other and pulling each others hair, and being a general nuisance in all kinds of ways. Nothing to do with sex. Sex is way more "serious" activity than vehtaaminen. Messing around sounds fine.

[AldenG]

Here's another example:

Saksalaisten kanssa vehtaaminen oli suuri häpeäpilkku Suomelle.

"Messing around with the Germans was a shameful blot on Finland ('s honor, reputation)."

This appears in a paragraph talking about collaboration with Nazi Germany and how the Dutch and French women who did so got their heads shaved after WWII.

http://www.hs.fi/keskustelu/aihealue/Po ... perPage=20

That particular instance is about an activity with a more specific name for it (collaboration), but looking at all the examples you find, vehtaaminen seems to be a vague word that for which I can't really think of a better all-purpose English term than "messing around."

[AldenG]

Sex is way more "serious" activity than vehtaaminen.

Except maybe when it isn't? And then it's vehtaaminen?

I'm thinking that for the most part this word in a sexual context refers to stuff that would happen in a car with other people or on a sofa at a party with others around, mostly but not necessarily always short of actual sex. Depending of course on the generation and the degree of inebriation of the parties involved.

Does that seem to fit?

The sofa activity you describe with your kids is often called rough-housing or horseplay if someone wants to be more specific. But in an irritated utterance it would be more common to say "Quit (that) horsing around" or "Quit (that) messing around."

[Rob A.]

Here's another example:

Saksalaisten kanssa vehtaaminen oli suuri häpeäpilkku Suomelle.

"Messing around with the Germans was a shameful blot on Finland ('s honor, reputation)."

This appears in a paragraph talking about collaboration with Nazi Germany and how the Dutch and French women who did so got their heads shaved after WWII.

http://www.hs.fi/keskustelu/aihealue/Po ... perPage=20

That particular instance is about an activity with a more specific name for it (collaboration), but looking at all the examples you find, vehtaaminen seems to be a vague word that for which I can't really think of a better all-purpose English term than "messing around."

Well...there are expressions in English such as "horseplay" and "roughhouse" which I recall being used when kids are behaving as EP described.... Such as: "Stop the horseplay!!"...or simply: "Stop horsing around!!!" ...Or "Stop the roughhousing!!!".... But I can't say I heard this expressions much these days....but then, mercifully, I don't have to spend much time around children....

Heck....I was just about to post this and I see Alden has covered it... So I guess I would say I concur...

[Rob A.]

Here's another example:

Saksalaisten kanssa vehtaaminen oli suuri häpeäpilkku Suomelle.

"Messing around with the Germans was a shameful blot on Finland ('s honor, reputation)."

This appears in a paragraph talking about collaboration with Nazi Germany and how the Dutch and French women who did so got their heads shaved after WWII.

http://www.hs.fi/keskustelu/aihealue/Po ... perPage=20

I was also a bit concerned with this statement....I wonder who would have written this???....Surely modern Finns do not think this about Finland's wartime activities?!?...

Finland was "abandoned" by its "so-called" allies...Britain and the US.... Britain even went so far as to declare war on Finland....and that, in my view, was the "shameful blot"....one liberal democracy declaring war on another liberal democracy.... In order to appease "Uncle Joe"..(Stalin, that is!)..Isä Aurinkoinen.... The US, at least, no doubt for some internal political reason, did not go that far.

Finland was left to face the "mercies" of the Russians on its own.... Russia was a far greater threat to Finland than was Germany....Ask the Estonians about that!! And I think Finland handled quite well the "negative" aspects of dealing with the Nazis.....

Of course, Germany had its "reasons", too.... but that's another complicated debate. The problem during the war years...or rather in the years that led up to the war.... was not Germany but rather the conditions that led to the rise of Nazism......

Anyway...enough...rant over....

[AldenG]

Yeah, in hindsight I could certainly have chosen a less controversial example. I think what made this one stick out for me, other than being on the page where I stopped looking at Google results, was the combination of a serious accusation about the Germany-Finland relationship with the choice of such a loose-fitting verb. It says something about the versatility of the verb. But of course I had no political intent.

There was another geopolitical one about Russia messing around with delivery of natural gas in recent years.

While we're on the topic of vehtaaminen, we shouldn't forget "fool around." It's possibly a degree or two more apt for sofa sex than "mess around" but also a degree or two less versatile for general-purpose usage.

Of course noname asked for the meaning, not the translation, so I guess that's more than covered.

[nO nAmE]

Thanks a lot. The context was smth like "lopeta jo tämä ihme vehtaaminen", so "to mess around" seems suitable.

[Rob A.]

Yeah, in hindsight I could certainly have chosen a less controversial example. I think what made this one stick out for me, other than being on the page where I stopped looking at Google results, was the combination of a serious accusation about the Germany-Finland relationship with the choice of such a loose-fitting verb. It says something about the versatility of the verb. But of course I had no political intent... .

And excuse my "rant"...and the "cheap shot" against Britain....the times were very desperate and Britain "needed" the Soviet Union more than it "needed" Finland.... And so the "little country" was dispensable.... And, with hindsight, it seems, underestimated...

Noble sentiments are fine when nothing is at stake.... But when things get dire, humans can be counted on to be.... Well...."human"....

[Jukka Aho]

Here's another example:
Saksalaisten kanssa vehtaaminen oli suuri häpeäpilkku Suomelle.

"Messing around with the Germans was a shameful blot on Finland ('s honor, reputation)."

This appears in a paragraph talking about collaboration with Nazi Germany and how the Dutch and French women who did so got their heads shaved after WWII.

http://www.hs.fi/keskustelu/aihealue/Po ... perPage=20

I was also a bit concerned with this statement....I wonder who would have written this???....Surely modern Finns do not think this about Finland's wartime activities?!?... :shock:

The linked discussion (and especially the original post where the quote was taken) has more to do with some of the Finnish women “fooling around” with the German soldiers positioned in Lapland during the war than with the Finnish—German strategic bilateral relations... although both topics are intermingled in the discussion, to a degree. But that actual “fooling around” aspect, in the sexual sense, explains the usage of the verb.

A number of children were born out of wedlock as a result of these relationships. Once the German troops retreated in the Lapland War, some of the women decided to go along with them. Those who didn’t had to raise their kids fatherless... or try and conceal their origin, in one way or the other. In the post-war situation, these kids and their mothers got lots of derogatory/demeaning attitude from the locals. (The “whole village” usually knew the background story anyway; their secrets being, at most, “public secrets”...)

There’s a recently-published book on the topic – Salatut lapset by Irja Wendisch (Gummerus Kustannus Oy 2006, ISBN 9512070650. See here as well.)

[AldenG]

Thanks for pointing that out.

Although I read only that one italicized paragraph, had I taken a moment to reflect on the words a bit more, it might have become apparent the writer was speaking rather literally when I took the whole thing a little more figuratively. For instance, I took seurustella in this instance to be more like rubbing shoulders, thinking of Finnish officers who took pride in their association with the officers and long military tradition of the big-brother country -- something that Mrs AG tends to gloss over when I've talked about the long and profound German (pre-Nazi) cultural and political influence on Finland. (I even made a joke the other night about Finland's once trying to "buy a king" from Germany.) My first reading of the paragraph is a good example of seeing what one expects to see instead of what's actually there.

Or if I had read the following non-italicized, paragraph, it would (or should) have prompted me to go back and read the italicized part from a different perspective.

However, the bit about Russia messing around with gas delivery (a separate hit when you Google vehtaaminen) actually IS about geopolitical machinations.

[nO nAmE]

Thanks for pointing that out.

Although I read only that one italicized paragraph, had I taken a moment to reflect on the words a bit more, it might have become apparent the writer was speaking rather literally when I took the whole thing a little more figuratively. For instance, I took seurustella in this instance to be more like rubbing shoulders, thinking of Finnish officers who took pride in their association with the officers and long military tradition of the big-brother country -- something that Mrs AG tends to gloss over when I've talked about the long and profound German (pre-Nazi) cultural and political influence on Finland. (I even made a joke the other night about Finland's once trying to "buy a king" from Germany.) My first reading of the paragraph is a good example of seeing what one expects to see instead of what's actually there.

Or if I had read the following non-italicized, paragraph, it would (or should) have prompted me to go back and read the italicized part from a different perspective.

However, the bit about Russia messing around with gas delivery (a separate hit when you Google vehtaaminen) actually IS about geopolitical machinations.

I am really gratefull for your desire to help and I do apologize that I barge in your discussion. However, I would like to remind you that initially it was a question about the meaning of the word. Being Russian, I am really confused about Finnish peculiarity to discuss your national identity in every post or every topic. And I am absolutely pissed off by this paranoic desire to present Russia as Evil Universal. Seriously. I guess there are thousands of issue-related forums where you can express all your hate, dissapointment or fear.

[EP]

I am really confused about Finnish peculiarity to discuss your national identity in every post or every topic.

Rob A isn´t Finnish, and I think neither is AldenG (although I am not sure about him (her?). And national identity isn´t discussed in every topic, so you can relax and forget the "Evil Universal" (which nobody tried to picture).

[Jukka Aho]

Although I read only that one italicized paragraph, [...] Or if I had read the following non-italicized, paragraph,

Just in case it isn’t obvious, the “italicized paragraph” is a quote from an earlier post to that discussion thread. (The original message appears on the previous page.) And the non-italicized paragraph is the writer’s comment to that quote.