The hapless inhabitants of Fjuckby have lost the last chance they had of changing the name of their village to something less suggestive of sexual intercourse. On Thursday, the National Land Survey of Sweden - the government agency responsible for the handling of place names - announced that it was following the recommendation of the Institute of Language and Folklore to preserve the name Fjuckby.
A delegation of residents applied in December of last year to have the old name Fjukeby reinstated, a variant in common usage until the 1930s. "There should not be any doubt at all that, as a result of relatively new associations, the pronunciation and spelling of the place name 'Fjuckby', today arouses ridicule, teasing and hilarity from members of the general public," wrote inhabitant Katriina Flensburg on behalf of her fellow villagers.
Fjuckby is saddled with the dual misfortune of containing both the rude Swedish word 'juck' and its more internationally recognizable English equivalent. Speaking to The Local in February, Flensburg said she was surprised by the folklore institute's resistance to a name change since the alternative, Fjukeby, was "pretty and nice". Fjuckby and Fjukeby both translate roughly as 'Windy Village'. |