GAARD  What does that mean?

In Danish that means directly translated FARM – right?

Every genealogist knows that a person who has a FARM is a FARMER and a GAARDMAND is a person working on a farm.

Well, stop a minute

If the word GAARD is always directly translated to FARM it can be totally misleading in some cases, since in Danish GAARD also can mean:

THE SPACE INSIDE A BUILDING

For example:

·         The OPEN space inside a Castle is called GAARD.

·         Also the open space inside a Farm Building is called GAARDEN

·         or the BOTTON INSIDE of an apartment building is called GAARDEN.

There can in some cases be apartments behind the front apartment. In that case the mailman would have to look for the apartment OVER GAARDEN = across the gaard.

When I lived Kongshøjgade 2, Vesterbro on the 4^th floor sometimes there were

GAARDSANGERE = directly translated would mean STREET SINGERS

but that would not be correct, since they were not singing in the street, but had to go inside the building through a narrow dark space in the basement of the building to get to GAARDEN.

Nevertheless, we also did have street singers, but they were singing “in the streets”.

I hope I have happily confused you on a bright summer Monday morning.

Vibeke Lindhardt

19 June 2017

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