Zed and Clarice swept through town over the weekend, bringing Georgian cognac The cognac came labeled with a strange and wonderful script I had never seen before.
 
and taking with them most of the contents of Södermalm’s thrift shops. Clarice had a Berlitz European phrase book from 1974 with her, with a chapter for Swedish:

The section on dating in particular suggests the 70s were a simpler time, before pickup-line inflation, when smoking was a language common to all, when the romantic (and the optimistic) could hope to get lucky during a night on the town armed with nothing more than this Berlitz guide and courage-through-lager. I wonder if the editors field-tested their lines. I imagine they assumed a typical “date” would go something like this:

Of course, the “datee” would only be able to nod yes or no, since the “dater” wouldn’t understand actual Swedish responses Some helpful phrases for dating in Georgian.. However, there is this helpful icebreaker:

The highlighted part especially seems like a good idea, though the more logically aware might hit a serious philosophical impasse if they ever needed to look up the phrase “Just a minute. I’ll see if I can find it in this book” in order to use it.