[OT] Re: using C with D -- Re: Dutch

[Chris Nicholson-Sauls]

Frits van Bommel wrote:
> BCS wrote:
>> Reply to Chris Nicholson-Sauls,
>>
>>> Gregor Richards wrote:
>>>
>>>> Confusing very things makes it, newsgroups in post-top don't please,
>>>> way the by.
>>>>
>>>> - Gregor Richards
>>>>
>>> The sad and scary thing is... I had to read that last line a few times
>>> before it occured to me what was strange about it...  0_o  Must be my
>>> 0.125 Dutch blood coming through.  Ik begrijp u.  Ik ben niet trots
>>> van het.  ;p
> 
> For the non-Dutch-speaking audience:
> "Ik begrijp u" == "I understand you" (though "u" is the formal form of 
> "you", and I'd probably have used the informal "je" in that sentence).
> That second sentence should probably be "Ik ben er niet trots op". The 
> way you wrote it looks like a Babelfish-like translation of "I'm not 
> proud of it" (i.e. a dictionary-in-hand/browser word-for-word 
> translation, seemingly not taking grammar into account).
> 
> I'm not sure why you'd bring up Dutch though, except perhaps as a reason 
> to be used to words being in the "wrong" order. (I'm pretty sure the 
> word order Gregor used makes about as little sense in Dutch as in 
> English, and Gregor seems be from Portland...)

Dictionary in hand, it was, I'll admit it.  :)  I haven't actually used 
any Dutch in almost seven years...  it was an excuse to go digging 
through crates for that dictionary.  Never know what other nifty things 
you'll find buried away in your own closets.

As to the reason... yeah, that's basically it, although yes the case in 
point makes no sense either way.  But one thing I've noticed is the 
Dutch end of my family has a peculiar tendency to utter ubiquitous 
phrases somewhat scrambled.  Don't really know why, but it happens.

-- Chris Nicholson-Sauls