If you’re an avid reader of trendy style magazines (of course you are), you will have come across this word some time ago. ‘Oh pu-lease!’ I hear you tut, ‘that hygge is so last year!’ If that’s you, well done. I doff my cap. If not, let me take a moment to explain.
Hygge, as you may have guessed, is a foreign word – Danish, to be precise – and it’s a tricky one to pronounce. Say ‘hig’ and you’ll be laughed out of Vogue House faster than you can say, ‘I’m spending the weekend at daddy’s country estate in Berkshire.’ Sources differ as to the correct pronunciation. It could be ‘hue-urrgh’, in which case I remember it being a major talking point around 11.30pm outside the Croydon pubs I used to frequent in the 80s. Or it could be ‘hoo-gar’. I prefer the latter as it provides poets and songwriters with that lyrical Holy Grail – a word to rhyme with nougat.
I feel a Cliff Richard Christmas single coming on.
But even more tricky than the pronunciation is the literal translation of hygge. Whole armies of wordsmiths have tried and failed. It’s like trying to find another word for thesaurus. The closest anyone has come is probably cosiness, but that doesn’t even tell half the story. Hygge is about togetherness, relaxation, hospitality, comfort, warmth, intimacy and, yes, cosiness. It is a feeling, a style, a philosophy, a handy way to fill eight pages of an interior design magazine.
The chief ingredients appear to be candles, pastries and cycling, with the occasional cardigan and perhaps a Val Doonican record thrown in. Apparently these are what the Danes regard as the good things in life. Whatever happened to horned helmets and pillage, that’s what I want to know?
The beauty of the English language is that it offers/proffers/provides/extends a choice/selection/menu/range of words for just about everything you want to say/convey/express. Having said that, there is usually one word for every situation/instance/scenario that is more apt/appropriate/apposite than the rest. It’s the subtle nuances that make the choosing of words such a pleasure.
If we look back over history, the usual form when coming across a foreign word that we can’t translate literally is just to adopt that word and call it English. Zeitgeist, chic, schadenfreude, Gibraltar… All ours. So expect to see hygge adopted into the Oxford English Dictionary before long.
And if you haven’t yet decked your home with candles and knitwear, hung a bike on the wall and filled the air with the evocative aroma of freshly baked pastries and herrings, what in the name of Frigg* are you waiting for?
*The Norse goddess of soft furnishings.
