Same spelling, a second meaning
Three words you already know have a second meaning that turns up in every news story about science and the climate.
| you know | new meaning |
|---|---|
| forsøget the attempt | forsøget the experiment |
| sporet the clue | sporet the trace (left behind) |
| handle to shop | handle to act, to take action |
Context decides. A forsøg with mice, volunteers or a laboratory is an experiment:
| The researchers did an experiment with mice. | Forskerne lavede et forsøg med mus. |
Spor af something is "traces of" (the plural is also spor):
| There were no traces of water on the planet. | Der var ingen spor af vand på planeten. |
Handle with no shop in sight, and with no om after it (handle om is still "to be about"), usually means "to act":
| We must act now, before it is too late. | Vi må handle nu før det er for sent. |
Reporting what the results show
tyde på is how Danish says what the evidence points to. The subject is typically alt, intet or the results themselves, and an at-clause or a noun follows på:
| Everything indicates that the climate is getting warmer. | Alt tyder på at klimaet bliver varmere. |
opvarmningen is the warming of the planet, and also the heating of a building; af tells you what gets warm. (At the gym, the same word is the warm-up.)
| The heating of the house costs a lot of money in the winter. | Opvarmningen af huset koster mange penge om vinteren. |
kønnet is gender or sex. The indefinite form køn looks exactly like the adjective køn "pretty", but this one is a neuter noun: et køn, begge køn, kønnene.
| The experiment showed no difference between the sexes. | Forsøget viste ingen forskel mellem kønnene. |
