hungarian-langblr:

inlanguagewedontsay:

In Swedish we don’t say “raccoon” we say “tvättbjörn (/ˈtvɛtˌbjøːrn/)” which literally translates to “wash bear” or “washing bear” and it makes me wonder if the person who named it had ever actually seen a raccoon before.

Submitted by @langbr-hell, with the help of @svensklangblr

[resources: Wiktionary, bab.la, Glosbe, Wiktionary considering “tvätta” and Wiktionary considering “björn”]

Same works for hungarian as well. Racoon is “mosómedve” and medve means bear and mosó means someone who washes.

We have a children’s book named Mosó Masa Mosodája, which is about a racoon who has a laundry basically.

Well. We french ppl call them “ratons-laveurs” which literally means “small washing rat” so.