Bird is the word
What a hoot! The word “beurt” means “turn”, but it also means many things, including “scoring”, and is used in a garden variety of expressions. Garden bird? No thanks!
(Photo: Hans Pruijs)
What a hoot! The word “beurt” means “turn”, but it also means many things, including “scoring”, and is used in a garden variety of expressions. Garden bird? No thanks!
(Photo: Hans Pruijs)
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May 26th, 2005 at 7:50 am
That’s very funny! But it’s also quite sad.
May 26th, 2005 at 8:25 am
pretty cheap beurt there, there’s certain areas in amsterdam with lots of red lights where you’d probably pay much much more for a beurt.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Zingende … tuinvogel?
*facepalm*
In my family, our English/Dutch code-switching included things like ‘It’s your beurt to dry the dishes’, which evolved into ‘It’s your Bert’ and occasionally ‘It’s your Ernie’.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
Good one! I often hear here “I’m going to a borrel” and ” I need to check my agenda”.
I once had an argument with the tax folks who could not find a major sum of money I had paid them. My Dutch was not great then, so I just said “even Apeldoorn bellen”, which is where the central tax office is, as you may know. The guy on the phone laughed and solved the problem.
Just felt like telling a story!
May 26th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
Natashka: I often here […]
I hope that was intentional? 😉
May 26th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
I meant here and then hear and then two clients called 🙂
May 26th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
Larry — back home, my family had tons of those Dunglish puns, like “Ik vrees de worst”, “Jenever Kentel”, and “Amerika is een leuk land: je naait ‘t steeds!” Unfortunately, my wife and children don’t speak Dutch, so most of that stuff is completely lost on them (and explaining doesn’t do much good, either). Of course, we had a few good ones in other languages, too, like the pun on that famous wine, “Chateauneuf du Pape”: Soixante-neuf du Pape (the pope’s “69”).
May 26th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
Worst-kaas scenario…
May 27th, 2005 at 12:01 am
Het voorbeeld van de ‘garden beurt’ en de reactie van Stefan deden me denken aan het gedicht ‘Taalbarrière’ van Kees Torn:
Ik schrok een beetje van de prijs
die meer dan honderd pond beliep
terwijl ik net die speelgoedsijs
had horen zingen: “cheap, cheap, cheap!”
May 27th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
English really needs a word like ‘borrel’, though, doesn’t it? Something more substantial than ‘cocktail (party)’ and less prosaic than ‘drink’.
Somewhere I have a newspaper clipping listing 100+ colloquial Dutch terms for ‘alcoholic beverage’ (borrel, neut, hassebassie, pikketanus, etc.). Tells you something about the culture, eh?
May 27th, 2005 at 3:51 pm
Please find clipping! A borrel is a drink, and borrel the occasion is happy hour, or something like that, depending heavily on where you’re from. In French, it’s having “a glass” (prendre un verre). As for words relating to drinking, IMHO the Russian take the cake. I still like zuipen.
The words related to “kater” are also interesing. In Québec, they have special words for that 🙂
May 27th, 2005 at 8:01 pm
The closest thing in English to a “borrel” is “to have a snifter” (referring specifically to a cognac glass), but it still doesn’t quite get there.
May 27th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
Ewoud Sanders wrote a book with 750 Dutch terms for ‘borrel’: “Borrelwoordenboek, 750 volksnamen voor onze glazen boterham”. You can find a part of his list on lambda.radiotequila.be/synoniemen.htm.
June 30th, 2005 at 11:37 pm
Kommt ein Mann zu Hause, trifft er seine Frau mit seinem besten Freund ins Bett. Er greift den Freund und wirft ihm aus das Fenster, während er ihm nachschreit: «wer fögeln kann, kann auch fliegen!»