What does “sånn ca.” mean in Norwegian?

Norwegians soften almost any number with sånn ca. (“like, roughly”). Sånn means “like, such,” and ca. is short for cirka (Latin “circa”). Stack them and you get the casual hedge Norwegians reach for whenever they don’t want to commit to a precise figure: estimating prices, distances, ages, or how long something will take.

This clip is a “how far can a piece of chalk go?” challenge, where two Norwegians wager guesses in meters: 75, 100, sånn ca. The structure of the bet is itself Norwegian: casual, friendly, and hedged. Sånn ca. lets you play without sounding cocky. Norwegian small-talk often runs on hedging like this, similar to how British English uses “I suppose.”