A series of events led Oliver and I to discover this week that the Swedish translation for bucket list is att-göra-innan-jag-dör-lista–literally “to-do-before-I-die-list.”

As much as I appreciate the attention to detail, I think the English idiom has Swedish beat on this one.

Surprisingly, the term in English has only existed recently: earliest known usage was in 2006 in relation to the film of the same name. It feels like it’s been around much longer; is it possible that “a list of things I really want to do before I die” was something that only occurred to English speakers in this century?

IMDB has a list of foreign language titles under which the film was released; in Swedish it was released as Nu eller aldrig–now or never.

Peter Rukavina

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Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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