Dunglish

Just throwing sentences together reminds me of an urban legend about ‘bullshit bingo’. The game was about writing down a bunch of terms like ‘paradigm’, ‘market share’ and ‘diversification’ and ticking them off while listening to upper manager spew such words out during dull meetings. This Belgian website basically threw its texts together much in the same way. Be sure to click on “route” and “jobs”. As well, the unfortunate stereotype that technical people cannot communicate is perpetuated here. I honestly do not understand what they do.

Many sites like this one feature a whole range of translations, often for the illogical reason of the more languages you use, the bigger your audience will be. I have to say this site is very useful, but I do use it in Dutch.

Some highlights:
“Dutch salesman have a lot of laughter and fun! They are friendly and polite, just ask for your question and they help you in so many ways.”
Grammatically.

“Do not hassletate to visit the Dutch markets whenever you come to Holland in Europe, just come and see us!”
Wow, a new verb, hassletate! Where hesitate meets hassle.

This small bit of colonial Dunglish comes from the sunny island of Curaçao, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, although there is speculation about it becoming its own country. They officially use Dutch and speak Papiamento, Spanish and English. It makes sense to get words mixed up with so many languages, but in any country, it is surprising to see mistakes on ‘official’ signs. That said, I still have to look at a Dutch sign near my place in Amsterdam that says “moter af” instead of “motor af” (turn off your motor) near a canal bridge.

(Photo: Remco’s mom)

It’s time for another funny bit of restaurant Dunglish. The Dutch word for ‘crab’ is ‘krab’, but it ended up as ‘crap’ here. Someone did try and correct it, but seemed unsure. And for people who cannot read Dutch that well, the ‘Poe’ bit just above (in English, ‘Poo’), is phonetic Dutch for whatever that means in Thai and still not very appetizing.

(Photo: Yuri)

Currently nearing the end of my Dutch driving lessons and having passed the theory exam in Dutch and enriched my vocabulary with ‘feery’ expensive words, I noticed that many driving schools have weird names. This one is called Snelway, a lovely collision of ’snelweg’ (highway or motorway, although the Dutch will usually say the American ‘highway’ first – in parts of Canada they even say ‘autoroute’ in English) and, well, ‘way’. There’s also this interesting driving school and their wonderful website. Oh, and something I found out by driving in downtown, bike-ridden, tram-filled, canal bridge-laden Amsterdam: “In Holland there are many unclear and confusing traffic situations”. They are absolutely right about that part.

(Link: Nans)