Dunglish

This little wonder was indeed shot in Amsterdam. The post office folks are not obliged to speak English, but lo and behold, they felt compelled to express themselves in some sort of English. This was literally translated from Dutch. If you see nothing wrong with the syntax (the sentence structure), then you either do not know better or have been Dutchified.

I personally enjoy the ‘who are open’ because in French, it would be ‘who’ (’qui’ sont ouverts). Since this is not Brussels where things are supposed to be bilingual in theory but are not in practice, my comparison is not very useful. Fact is, people throw a few English words together and actually think it’s OK. That’s what worries me.

(Photo: Yuri)

A picture can really be worth a thousand words. If this had been taken in an Anglo-Saxon country, you’d just think an illiterate drop-out wrote it. Knowing this was taken somewhere around Amsterdam, it’s just sad to see that whoever wrote this couldn’t even be bothered with using their native language. Yes, I’m speculating. The sequence of vowels ‘ae’ is ironically found in the names of Dutch streets that have very expensive houses, as it is old Dutch spelling.

(Photo: Yuri)

The English part of this sign says “Please do not climb in this border!” The explanation was that these wild animals roam almost free on a sort of island, seperated by a ditch. As per the zoo’s website, there’s barely any fencing. Nans, who supplied this bit of Dunglish, asked me about ‘climb in’ vs. ‘climb into’, which is a non-issue since they’re both wrong here. Rumour has it they use the word ‘border’ in this context in Britain – I wouldn’t know. In the US they’d tell people to leave the animals the hell alone.

My answer is change the entire sign.

(Photo: Nans)

I adore the ‘greatful’ part! Another international cliché about the Dutch is their obsession with cleaning toilets. The amount of advertising poured into products specifically related to keeping your toilet clean is mind-boggling. And then there’s the different kinds of toilets, one of which constantly needs brushing, if you get my drift. This bit of Dunglish is easily blamed on the cleaning staff, who probably don’t speak English and don’t have to. So flush it.

(Photo: Frank)

What was that Dutch cliché about working at an international company and that everybody has to speak English? Well, it doesn’t apply to the cleaning staff. You may jest, but I swear to you I deal with this kind of twisted sentence almost everyday from employees much higher up the food chain.

(Photo: Frank)