Comments on: The right sounds

By: Wild Man Tony

Wild Man Tony — Tue, 10 May 2005 22:46:34 +0000

In the words of the great Frank Zappa…”the crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe (’)”
Even the Dutch don’t know the correct way to use one….what hope does the rest of the world have?

By: Natashka

Natashka — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:33:11 +0000

If the Dutch feel the need to use English to communicate with each other, then something has to be wrong. If they want to communicate with the rest of the world, OK, but that’s often not the case.

By: Natashka

Natashka — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 15:18:22 +0000

Mare, your English is fine. If people use English *instead* of Dutch altogether, then they should use English grammar, as they will be read by speakers of many languages. You can’t have it both ways. Of course, it’s not easy. When people in Québec start advertising in bad Spanish *instead* of French to sound hip, send me an e-mail

By: mare

mare — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:32:15 +0000

It’s quite scary to comment here, BTW, just because I’m too afraid to make a Dunglish-ism. Nataska must me really assimilated now, anal retentivism about language is a typical Dutch thing. In her home country Québec/Canada (where I happen to live now, we sort of switched countries/cities) people are much more forgiving of errors in language. It’s about communication here, and everybody makes errors. So what?

My father, who was a university professor in Dutch, was very forgiving in spelling and syntax mistakes. “If people are using it, it is part of the language,” he used to say.

By: mare

mare — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:25:25 +0000

Using apostrophes in the wrong places is done wrong by many native speakers/writers as well. I wouldn’t call it specifically Dunglish. Only because the rules in Dutch are different, Dutch writers tend to make this mistake more often.

By: Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 13:30:06 +0000

Heh, just kidding.

By: Milo

Milo — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 09:48:21 +0000

No, but I was the one who first forwarded your Flickr photo to Martijn.

By: Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 09:06:35 +0000

Milo! Don’t tell me you designed that ’servicewagen’!

By: Milo

Milo — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 09:13:16 +0000

It’s all my fault, Caroline

By: Martijn

Martijn — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 18:45:37 +0000

I prefer ‘dienstwagen to ’servicewagen’. But then again, Servicewagen on a German VW makes perfectly good sense.