Learn Swedish: FN:s chef har precis skickat sms:et. - The UN's boss has just sent the text message.

In Swedish, when you add a suffix like the genitive -s (for possession) to an initialism or acronym, you use a colon to attach the ending. Since FN stands for Förenta Nationerna (the UN), making it possessive gives us FN:s.

Why is sms:et written in lowercase letters and with a colon?

When an initialism becomes a common everyday noun, Swedish standard practice is to write it entirely in lowercase, which is why SMS becomes sms. To make it definite (meaning 'the text message'), we add the definite suffix -et since it is an ett word. We use a colon to connect the base word and the suffix, resulting in sms:et.

Does precis mean 'precisely' here?

It can mean 'precisely' or 'exactly' in other contexts, but when used with a verb in the perfect tense like it is here, precis means 'just'. So har precis skickat translates to 'has just sent'. You will often see the word just used in Swedish to mean the exact same thing.

Why does precis go between har and skickat?