Dunglish

Yes, we know what they are trying to say, but the Dunglish doesn’t even come close to the Dutch original. First, I want to address the language problem, then the big honking cultural problem.

The Dutch roughly says, ‘Do you do it like this at home, too?’ and then the message is lost in translation, never mind ‘your’ that got botched up (’youre’).

The big honking issue here is the unfortunate ‘Dutch rudeness’. Pointing out bad behaviour in puppy-peed-on-the-carpet style gets you nowhere with the rest of us mortals. ‘Please pick up after yourself’. Thank you’ is the way to go, no matter how irritated you are. And then the Dunglish won’t matter as much.

(Thanks Arjen!)

The song is a nicely performed rock and roll number by Marc Verhaegen and his orchestra (band), but with a totally Dunglish title: ‘I Feel Me a King’, a direct translation of ‘Ik voel mij een koning’, which should be ‘I Feel Like a King’.

Let the record show (pun) that his accent is pretty darn good otherwise.

You can hear this beauty too right here.

(Link and photo: Showcase (Frits Jonker of the Fool’s Gold column in Dutch comic strip magazine Zone5300), via @waa on Twitter, thanks!)