Translation trend
If Dunglish wasn’t bad enough as a way to mangle the Dutch language, these literal translations (in Dutch) don’t help matters much. But yes, they are funny. While old school Dutch comedians Van Kooten en de Bie enriched the Dutch dictionary, new school comedians such as Theo Maassen have provided literal translation of English into Dutch. His popular live act ‘Neuk het systeem’ is a literal translation of the English ‘Fuck the system’. This kind of word play is something many of my Dutch friends do at the office and at parties and no, it’s not always dirty. The idea is everybody knows what they mean if they just translate it back to English.
(Tip: Maud)
March 18th, 2006 at 11:02 am
Hans Teeuwen,
Theo Maassen,
Hans Maasen
Theo Teeuwen…
Het blijft lastig he…
March 18th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
‘Neuk het systeem’ was an act of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theo_Maassen]Theo Maassen[/url].
March 18th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
I’m sorry about the mix up. A thousand pardons to all the fans!
March 20th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Dutch people also need to know that when they use English profanities, English speakers tend not to be as accepting of it as other Dutch speakers are. I think that’s a bigger problem.
March 20th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
IIRC there’s a TV show on Talpa called Fok Jou (I will post about it). Swearing in EN is less meaningful than in Dutch, but this phenomenon is not limited to Dutch. It does offend me, but then I do karate 🙂
April 7th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
The whole thing started with hip hop crew Osdorp Posse as far as I know, with their moederneukers