Comments on: Corporate Dunglish – not so easy!

By: Pauls

Pauls — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:56:11 +0000

Hm, well, I’m an American and I use the hyphen for a whole monetary amount. The comma IS distressing, however.

By: Brian Barker

Brian Barker — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 05:09:34 +0000

There seems to be an argument for Esperanto here.

If you have a minute see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU

By: Expat in Holland

Expat in Holland — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:12:14 +0000

It is not so easy, but very hard!

By: Remco

Remco — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:36:07 +0000

I guess KPN threw out all native speakers because of the crisis.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:47:10 +0000

THANK YOU for mentioning that hideous habit of writing “€4,-” instead of just “€4.” I thought I’d lost that battle.

By: Larry

Larry — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:10:51 +0000

Blechh. KPN’s too cheap and/or stupid to realize this is not something a random employee of theirs can dash off just because he or she knows English.

Of course, their excuse is probably going to be ‘Oh, it’s not really for native English speakers, just for anyone who understands English, and anyone can understand it, so what’s the problem?’.

The whole approach is just so … sorry, can’t think of an English word that works here, except maybe ‘dorky’. Knullige vertaling, lullige uitstraling.

By: English as she is spoke « Style and Substance

English as she is spoke « Style and Substance — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:56:21 +0000

[...] I’m willing to cut small businesses some slack, I totally agree with the person who shared this image: there’s really no excuse for the largest Dutch telephone company to print stuff like this. [...]

By: Natashka

Natashka — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:10:18 +0000

I can’t spell! I need a ‘vacashun’

By: Koos

Koos — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:31:43 +0000

I was actually about to ask whether you posted this late at night, but apparently it was 2:59 PM. So that doesn’t explain your “We’ve talk about this” or “coporations”

But back to the KPN Dunglish. The “Internet on our PC” doesn’t feel right to me either. “Internet on Your PC” would make sense, but as I understand it the hotspot isn’t so much public Wifi, but rather a public PC (Judging by the monitor).

That kinda makes me feel that they meant “Internet” to be a verb here, “to internet”. Not sure, but I don’t think to internet is a valid, or at least not a very commonly used verb. “Use the internet on our PC” or “Browse the internet on our PC” sounds a lot better to me.

Bit of a grey area, I would advise them to play it save and change it so you KNOW it’s correct.