It’s Going Downhill With Our Language Skill (WTFBBQ?)

Right.  Surreal blog today.  As this will be a rant about the Dutch language.  Or lack thereof.  In English.  Eh?  Indeed.  Maybe that is a bit weird.  Perhaps will toss in some rants about English as well.  But then I always face the awkwardness of not being a native speaker.  There _are_  booboos in this blog.  But well, it’s all about the Principle of the Thing.

First of all there’s the anglification (is this a word?  Now it is!)  Dutch words are being repressed by their hip English counterparts.  Now I do realize that that is a bit of a natural process.  Languages being influenced by each other.  After all beef used to be boeuf.  So.  But these days it’s becoming ridiculous. Try looking for a job for example.  Open website (or newspaper for the archaic people among us).  Hard not to be dazzled by fancy sounding job titles.  Fact that no one has any idea at all what the job is about is but a tiny detail.  If lucky, description will come to your aid.  If not lucky, description contains more fancy English stuff you’re supposed to be.  If only you knew what they meant.  Luckily am not looking for new job.  And hopefully will not have to do that any time soon.  So let’s move on.

On top of my annoyance list when it comes to anglification is the invasion of kids.  We no longer have children (well, kinderen), we have kids.  So we go out with our kids.  We buy our kids clothes.  People ask me how are the kids. And so forth.  And so on.  Answer that the children are fine.  In meanwhile look for bucket as urge for gagging and sputtering is quite imminent.  The horror of kids in Dutch.  Seriously.  Yuck.  Stop saying it!   It’s completely faux hip, all this kidsbusiness.  My dislike runs so deep that by now even have trouble using the word in English.  Nothing wrong with children imho.   Now that we’ve got this settled, it’s time for Grammatical Horrors: Advanced Class, Something with D’s and T’s.

For my non Dutch-speaking readers.  Oh well, considering the rant that will follow, this is _also_ for my Dutch-speaking readers.  Hello, pedantic bitchy blog writer.  Waves.  Bows.  Nodandsmilenodandsmile.  Anywayz.  In Dutch grammar there is one thing that drives many people insane (I add: for some reason) and that is the so called dt-rule.  Now, what is this all about.

Verbs.  Conjugation.  Yayness!  We will limit ourselves to the core of the problem, being the third-person singular in present tense (derde persoon enkelvoud)  and the past participle (voltooid deelwoord).  As in English, we have a stem and an ending.  Few things are simpler than the third-person singular.  You take the stem and add a T.  T. T. T.  ALWAYS a T.  But… No.  A T!  And that’s final.  Unfortunately – though that depends entirely on your point of view – there are those pesky verbs with stems ending in a –d.  And so the confusion – allegedly – begins.  What to do, what to do?  Just add a T.  T. T. T.  Doobiedoobiee. Teeeeeeee.  And that is how we end up with DT.  Perfectly possible.  Perfectly logical. 

Then the past participle.  Granted, this can be more complicated.  Some will end in a –d and some will end in a –t.  So we’d have to find out which is which.  Ground rule here seems to be that we go for the D.  For regular verbs that is.  However, there are six consonants that demand a T.  Happily joined in the words ‘t kofschip (some kind of ancient ship) or ‘t fokschaap (breeding sheep).  The meaning of the words doesn’t matter of course, what does matter are T K F S CH P (ch is one sound).  When your stem ends on one of those, you put a –t.  Again, this only goes for regular (so called “weak”) verbs.  There also are strong verbs.  And – are we still there? – semi-weak verbs.  Still, quite logical. 

Hope you enjoyed this most fascinating aspect of Dutch grammar.  Onwards to my vexation.  For some reason it is impossible for many people to get this right.  The past few years we’ve had the Rise of the D *dumdumdumdum*  All of a sudden d’s are everywhere.  Third-person singular: a D.  A D for crying out loud.  Why. Would.  You. Put. A. D. There?  WHY?  Excuses galore follow.  Never understood the dt-rule.  It’s so hard.  Am against the correct use of d and t because strongly believe this rule is a conspiracy of the government to cover up the exact landing spot of a spaceship containing aliens whose language consists only of d’s and t’s.  But, seriously, it’s so complicated.  Never been good at it.  Had to use the grammar book to feed my three legged blind hamster so never been able to truly master this.  Boohoo.

Got a bit carried away there it seems.  Now, where was I.  Rise of the D.  This goes as far as adding d’s where they’re definitely not wanted.  Apart from using them in ridiculous places such as third-person singular they sometimes even show up at the end of nouns.  Seriously.  Do people suffer from t-phobia?  Must have something to do with the past participle.  Common mistake is to put a T at the end of those (when it should be a D).  People then met wrath of teacher and decided to forgo the T altogether.  If we put a D, surely we’re safe.  Instead of (sorry, this will be in Dutch) Wie bepaalt dat het niet bepaald slim is wat Jantje heeft bepaald over de taart? we get “Wie bepaald dad hed nied bepaald slim is wad Jandje heefd bepaald over de taard?”  Right.  Looks a lot better imho.  Am in favour of tossing that crappy T completely out of alphabet.  Problem solved!  Huzzah!

Okies.  Enough Dutch. Will toss a there their they’re in for the English speakers as well.  There you go.  Yay! 

Still wondering about why no one seems to give a rat’s ass (pardon my French) about writing properly.  Suppose they do want their message to get across?  Ok, there is that thingie about being able to read an entire word by only seeing a few letters.  And surely your reader does not mind having to decipher the meaning of your message.  And surely they can do without their eyes (them being torn out).  Meh.  Personally think it _does_ matter that you can write properly.  Everyone can make mistakes, but blatantly ignoring grammar is just rude.  Because, really, how hard is it to at least try to write decently?  If you can’t even take that effort, don’t see why I should do my best to try and read it.  There. 

Also not allowed to point out any mistakes.  Because that is rude for some reason.  After all it doesn’t matter. Was able to understand message?  Yes?  Good, then shut up while I compose the next grammatical abomination.  It’s contagious though.  That’s the real horror of it.  Sometimes catch myself doing it myself.  Argh.  Serious argh indeed.  Of course, if someome spots a blatant mistake feel free to tell me.  Especially if it concerns d’s and t’s.  Please inform me so that can go look for shovel.  Then dig hole with it.  And hide in shame.  Should know better after all.  So sad.

So, pls for write guud?  Ceiling Cat will rwrd u.  Ktnxbai!  Ooer.  Said “u”.  Could’ve spent entire paragraph on dislike of “u”and “ur” (The only Ur I recognise is the ancient Babylonian one. Ktnxbaiforrealnow).