[Tango-L] Finnish Tandas, Spelling Corrections & etc

[Tango Mail]

Re: "John" 's e-mail.

Firstly.. it is "cabeceo", not "cabaceo".

Second:
"lava" is a platform.
"lavat" is many platforms.
"tanssi" is A dance.
"tanssit" many dances
"tanssia" TO dance

"lavatanssit" A public dance event held at a venue 
that has a wooden parquet platform meant for dancing.

"mies" a man.
"miesten" men's....
"Hae" an order to seek
"haku" an activity of seeking
"Miesten Haku" an activity of seeking intended for males.

As to how men and women go request for a dance, it
isn't verbally, least not most of the time.  One sticks their
hand out toward the other person and they take it.  In
extreme cases the woman or the man might even grab the
arm of the person they want and yank them onto the floor.
Events can be so packed that you're standing against the
wall in throngs.. if you want someone standing behind
two or three other people, as the lines are so deep, you can't
very well get the person you want unless you take some
initiative.

In rural areas and in times of old, where/when seating is/was 
available around the "lava", a man would go ask, as they still ask in
the ballroom world: he would stand in front of the woman,
bow down slightly, extend his hand, and ask if she cared to 
dance with him. She could turn him down if she didn't 
want to dance with him.  Those whom had enjoyed too many
"encouragement" drinks just outside the "lava" and were
smelling strongly of Vodka were commonly turned down.
This of course lead to some fist fights and knife fights
afterwards.. especially if another man came to the rescue of
a woman that was being dragged into the floor without
her consent.

Cleanliness was less of a problem then than it may be now.
Dances were held on a Saturday and if you did not work on a 
farm and use the sauna on a daily bases to cleanse after
14 hours in the field, you would do so weekly on Saturday.
You'd then don your best clothes, shine your black boots,
gel the hair and slick it back, and head out to catch the
damsels in their pretty flower dresses at the "lavatanssit".

Yours truly, the apparent "authority on Finnish language on
this board",

Jani = "Yanni" = "John"