Do the Finnish have a word for getting drunk alone in your underwear?

Question

Urban dictionary (and many other articles on the internet) claim that the Finnish word "kalsarikännit" means:

to drink by yourself at your house in your underwear with no intention of going out

I couldn't find any Finnish source supporting this and I do not speak Finnish anyway.

Does this word exist in the Finnish language? And if yes, does it mean this?

@Jeremy: I have never gotten drunk on Christmas *in my underwear*. OK, well, technically I suppose I have - but not **only** in my underwear, which is apparently the point of the question. (Actually, one of my best Christmases as an adult was spent in the O-club annex at the Subic Bay Naval Station staying one drink short of ill for Christmas 1980. But I swear I was in full uniform the entire time :-)). — Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні, Oct 30 '17 at 13:48

score 131 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

131

Yes, it actually is a Finnish word used by the Finnish people.

ThisisFinland is a site for the promotion of Finland: It is associated with the Finnish Government.

Produced by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and published by the Finland Promotion Board _{This is Finland - About Us}

Regarding kalsarikännit, they claim:

The feeling when you are going to get drunk home alone in your underwear – with no intention of going out.

A drink. At home. In your underwear. And there is a word for it. Kalsarikännit.

They even have Finnish emoji's to describe the activity:

Apparently, Google translates it as underweardrunk[sic].

edited Jun 17 '20 at 09:41

Community

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answered Oct 25 '17 at 09:08

Jordy

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This answer is correct, but it should be noted that the concept of "word" is fluid and, in highly [agglutinative languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language) like Finnish, somewhat dubious; Cf. Turkish, which is remarkably similar to Finnish in many ways despite being genetically unrelated, where [*muvaffakiyetsizleştiricileştiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmişsinizcesine* translates to "as though you are from those whom we may not be able to easily make into a maker of unsuccessful ones"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_Turkish). – errantlinguist Oct 25 '17 at 12:59
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As a Finn giving first hand information about our language *kalsarikännit* is adopted, used and understood by Finnish speakers and it has not been made up just for the sake of having a fun word. – Mikko Ohtamaa Oct 27 '17 at 08:19
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Every Finn I've spoken to recognises this agglutinative combination, although some have implied it's a word that's in vogue, and reasonably new. @MikkoOhtamaa can you remember when you started using this word? – Nathan Cooper Oct 27 '17 at 11:16
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@NathanCooper [this page lists](http://www.helsinki.fi/~lkotilai/suomenkielinyt/) it from 2005-2006 and I'd believe it to be at least as old... – Antti Haapala Oct 27 '17 at 12:39
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@NathanCooper It seems to have been mentioned at least in a well-known online narrative, later turned a book, called "Juoppohullun päiväkirja", i.e. "Totally Smashed", by Finnish author [Juha Vuorinen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juha_Vuorinen) in 1998. – Antti Haapala Oct 27 '17 at 12:59
hahaha. As a Turk, I read abruptly its English after first word since even I can't well grasp its meaning and had never heard before. @errantlinguist – Soner from The Ottoman Empire Oct 28 '17 at 11:56
@snr: even after reading the English translation I still don't understand what it means. :-) – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні Oct 29 '17 at 19:43
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@errantlinguist Similarly in Finnish there are grammatically correct but artificial agglutinative constructions which are difficult to parse even to a native speaker, such as the commonly mentioned *epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän*, very roughly translated as the sentence fragment "I wonder if even with his/her ability/tendency to not make things unorganized". I think. – JohannesD Oct 29 '17 at 21:05
It's interesting that the emojis are smiling. This, to me, speaks of a sort of desperate, lonely, pathological activity... Surgical spirit from an old bean tin kind of thing! – Grimm The Opiner Oct 30 '17 at 09:25

vipirtti · Answer 2 · 2017-10-25T19:06:19.473

It's a real word (a compound word fromed from kalsari(t) (underwear) and känni (drunkenness), both rather colloquial versions of these words) and can be found in the online dictionary of the Institute for the Languages of Finland (the institute in charge of standardization of languages used in Finland). The word is described as:

kalsarikänni ark. humalahakuisesta kotona juomisesta alushoususillaan t. muuten rennosti pukeutuneena. Otti kalsarikännit.

Translated to English: "drinking at home in your underwear or otherwise casually dressed, with intent of getting drunk".

The institute is also holding a Suomen sana -kipailu (The Word of Finland - competition). While there isn't yet a winner, 10 finalists were already selected from a list of publicly proposed words and kalsarikännit is included in the finalists. The selection was done by "Kotuksen asiantuntijat" (English: experts of the institute). I'd recon this would exclude any fake words from being in the top 10.

Other compound words found in the top 10 would be sinivalkoinen (blue and white, or, through reference to the Finnish flag, adjective for finnish) and demokratiavaje (democracy deficit, a term coined by those unhappy with Finland's role in EU decition making).

Do the Finnish have a word for getting drunk alone in your underwear?

2 Answers2