August 03, 2005
Reasons to be cheerful Pt. 1
Dutch is one of those languages where if you don't know a word you can go quite a long way running two english words together and putting 'je' on the end or 'ge' in front, when in doubt do both. And if that doesn't work it will take everyone so long to work out what you were trying to say that you've long since disappeared in a flurry of project plans and font files.
And so we come to 'geconcepteered', or the past tense of having concepted something. Now 'concept' is a noun even in English so its rebirth as a Dutch verb was always going to be a long shot but for several years now it has been accepted by those upon whom I've been inflicted with a reasonable pretence of comprehension. Or something.
More recently however my bluff was called and the ensuing discussion about my "perfect nederlands" (my words) prompted the observation that what I spoke could better be described as "vrolijk nederlands*". Should I charge extra for that?
*cheerful Dutch
Posted by Faith | TrackBack