These are a few of the great ideas I've observed unique to Holland:
When you walk around nature areas you come across heavy wooden gates that close by gravity when you let go. The hinges are installed on an angle, so the gate opens up into the air like a Lamborghini door, so when you let go it drops back down against the fence.
Often roadside nature strips are mown but the gardeners leave a patch of grass and wildflowers to go to seed. These gardeners sew random wildflowers along roadsides, which produce a colourful tapestry in Spring.
Bike locks that encircle the back wheel and you can't remove the key unless it's locked.
Traffic lights too high to see when you park too close to the crossing. These annoying lights force you to stop well back from the intersection, or else crane your neck to see the lights change above your car. This may be considered a good idea for controlling driver behaviour at traffic lights.
People leave their jackets hanging on a rack somewhere near the front of the building, cafe or whatever. Anyone could make an easy living with a second hand jacket shop, or simply upgrade their own jacket any time for free.
Are you are looking for a Maastricht house for rent.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Annoying language
I notice when I come back to Holland from a holiday, riding home on the train from Schiphol, a rising irritation from the sound of all the Dutch voices around me.
Not just the deep gravelly women's voices, or the gutteral 'g' sound, but also the expressions that get repeated ad nauseum.
In Holland when someone enters a room, or a carriage, or any place where they want to get attention or appear to be important, they utter a long and loud 'Zo!'. Utterly meaningless of course, except to say 'I am self-important and crave attention'.
When the Dutch are bored or wish to express something like 'same old same old' they'll murmur 'heh heh' with the two sounds a descending diminished 5th apart. The diminished 5th (or augmented 4th) is considered one of the ugliest musical intervals, only used in modern dissonant compositions. So it tends to grate on the ear.
When they are surprised they exclaim something that sounds like 'shoonger yoonger', apparently also meaningless, but annoyingly popular.
A disconcerting aspect of the Dutch is that you can often hear the F word on the radio or hear an otherwise civilised looking woman say 'Shit!' when she drops something, uttered as casually as 'Oops' in English.
If you phone a utility company in Holland within 2 hours of noon, you will be greeted with 'Goodahhhhhhhhhhhhhh'. The 'ah' will go on for several seconds while they decide on the next word. The aaah sound will then evolve into 'morgen' or 'middag', for 'morning' or 'afternoon'. Sometimes I like to use the same technique, and test how long I can sustain the ah sound without being interrupted.
The Dutch (and French) also use that ah sound to keep control in a conversation. When they can't think of the right word they will utter a long and continuous ah sound which deters anyone from interrupting. I've heard that it can be a problem when they are vacuuming or using a hair dryer - if the said item is not working, they may not realize for quite some time.
Alas it's not only the Dutch who induce this irritation in the ears of a sensitive person. Any automatically repeated word or phrase can be nauseating if repeated often enough. Once on the bus from Luton airport to the station a group of Americans were chatting, and about every 3rd or 4th word was 'like'.
"My friend was like 'Hi Madison'. So I was like 'Hi Brianna what would you like?'. She was like 'I'd like a Coke!', and I was like 'But that's not like legal in Holland'." By the 50th 'like' I had a sickening dread of the next 'like'.
More recently I was somehow trapped into watching Jersey Shore, a hit show on MTV. This group of eloquent intellectuals endlessly repeat the phrase 'Oh my God', until you cringe, waiting for the next occurrence. Often it's many times in succession in a high voice: "Oh my God oh my God oh my God!" Sometimes very slowly, for extra dramatic effect: "Ohhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyy...."... as if to leave you breathlessly wondering what the next word will be.
Apart from these brainless repetitions, Americans are prone to basic errors ingrained in their collective psyche, such as 'nucular' instead of 'nuclear', which even presidents like George Bush use. Somehow a 'd' becomes a 't' for American commentators: 'secont' instead of 'second', and 'Wimbleton' instead of 'Wimbledon'.
These mistakes are about as palatable to the ear as the lower class English accent, which fillets out all the T sounds from a sentence, except at the start of words. Possibly the utterance of a T would reveal some shameful pretensions of snobbery. "I''s be''er if we ea' da bu''er on da table, no' on da floor!".
On the other hand the English upper class will not deign to pronounce the 'R' sound, as if it were frightfully infradig and would expose a black peasant in the lineage.
Then there are the fashionable English words, which change frequently. No English youth would be cool without saying 'massive', 'random', 'chill' or more recently 'lush' in each sentence. Even the otherwise innocent 'well' becomes a grating adjective when misused, as in 'I was well hungry', instead of 'very hungry'.
Somehow 'shite' took the place of 'shit', as if it is more acceptable or less rude. I think people can guess what the root word was, so it is a thin dishuise. I don't know if they say 'I need to do a shite now'.
Most annoying is the Brit usage of 'obviously' as a filler. Each sentence will be peppered with 'obviously', even when they are explaining something highly complex and not at all obvious. I like to interrupt to inform them that "It's not obvious to me!"
And of course the omnipresent 'literally', as if that big word gives extra thrust to their statement. "I was literally cleaning my teeth when I noticed some were literally missing!'
Australians also have their annoying expressions. A friend from Australia recently stayed for a few days, and after he heard me tease another friend about some word he overused, the Australian said "I suppose even I might have such pet words". I asked if he seriously didn't know what his were, and he claimed he didn't. In every sentence he included 'sort of' and 'kind of' at least two or three times, often twice in succession.
A funny Australian filler 'and that' is used instead of 'etc'. Aussies will say 'I was cleaning the car and that, when I found some money and that under the seat'. The post-match cricket captain interview goes something like this: "Yes we lost so we've sort of got to put our heads down and that, so we can sort of do better in the next match".
There are numerous 'business' words and expressions that office workers hear on CNN and adopt for frequent use in order to sound more professional. A typical sentence in a business meeting goes something like this:
"Again, let's touch base off-line so before actioning you can double-check the data landscape on the ground and give us a heads-up at close of play, because as I say, the bottom line is our mindset has to think outside the box so going forward we can be on the same page at the end of the day, then we can baseline the downstream impact to achieve closure in the current marketplace."
Brits like to use 'absolutely' instead of 'yes' to answer questions. The first time it sounds authoritative, but when it's repeated compulsively you realise the speaker has no more authority than a parrot.
This is the thing that makes language misuse so repulsive: the mechanicality of it. Parrots hear something and repeat it, and humans do the same, with some filtering, depending on whom they hear it from and whom they are trying to impress. Is it fear of being true to ourselves, of consistently being one person that stops us from creating sentences?
It seems we feel the need to adjust our accent, words and pronunciation to be more acceptable to the listener, rather than to be better understood.
Often I've overheard an expat with the merest hint of Australian accent, but when I ask if they are Australian they immediately adopt the roughest yobbo accent you would hear in the outback.
It's such a strong fear that we automatically adopt an artificial personality at the drop of a hat, thereby giving up our truer self, selling our soul for a pittance.
Not just the deep gravelly women's voices, or the gutteral 'g' sound, but also the expressions that get repeated ad nauseum.
In Holland when someone enters a room, or a carriage, or any place where they want to get attention or appear to be important, they utter a long and loud 'Zo!'. Utterly meaningless of course, except to say 'I am self-important and crave attention'.
When the Dutch are bored or wish to express something like 'same old same old' they'll murmur 'heh heh' with the two sounds a descending diminished 5th apart. The diminished 5th (or augmented 4th) is considered one of the ugliest musical intervals, only used in modern dissonant compositions. So it tends to grate on the ear.
When they are surprised they exclaim something that sounds like 'shoonger yoonger', apparently also meaningless, but annoyingly popular.
A disconcerting aspect of the Dutch is that you can often hear the F word on the radio or hear an otherwise civilised looking woman say 'Shit!' when she drops something, uttered as casually as 'Oops' in English.
If you phone a utility company in Holland within 2 hours of noon, you will be greeted with 'Goodahhhhhhhhhhhhhh'. The 'ah' will go on for several seconds while they decide on the next word. The aaah sound will then evolve into 'morgen' or 'middag', for 'morning' or 'afternoon'. Sometimes I like to use the same technique, and test how long I can sustain the ah sound without being interrupted.
The Dutch (and French) also use that ah sound to keep control in a conversation. When they can't think of the right word they will utter a long and continuous ah sound which deters anyone from interrupting. I've heard that it can be a problem when they are vacuuming or using a hair dryer - if the said item is not working, they may not realize for quite some time.
Alas it's not only the Dutch who induce this irritation in the ears of a sensitive person. Any automatically repeated word or phrase can be nauseating if repeated often enough. Once on the bus from Luton airport to the station a group of Americans were chatting, and about every 3rd or 4th word was 'like'.
"My friend was like 'Hi Madison'. So I was like 'Hi Brianna what would you like?'. She was like 'I'd like a Coke!', and I was like 'But that's not like legal in Holland'." By the 50th 'like' I had a sickening dread of the next 'like'.
More recently I was somehow trapped into watching Jersey Shore, a hit show on MTV. This group of eloquent intellectuals endlessly repeat the phrase 'Oh my God', until you cringe, waiting for the next occurrence. Often it's many times in succession in a high voice: "Oh my God oh my God oh my God!" Sometimes very slowly, for extra dramatic effect: "Ohhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyy...."... as if to leave you breathlessly wondering what the next word will be.
Apart from these brainless repetitions, Americans are prone to basic errors ingrained in their collective psyche, such as 'nucular' instead of 'nuclear', which even presidents like George Bush use. Somehow a 'd' becomes a 't' for American commentators: 'secont' instead of 'second', and 'Wimbleton' instead of 'Wimbledon'.
These mistakes are about as palatable to the ear as the lower class English accent, which fillets out all the T sounds from a sentence, except at the start of words. Possibly the utterance of a T would reveal some shameful pretensions of snobbery. "I''s be''er if we ea' da bu''er on da table, no' on da floor!".
On the other hand the English upper class will not deign to pronounce the 'R' sound, as if it were frightfully infradig and would expose a black peasant in the lineage.
Then there are the fashionable English words, which change frequently. No English youth would be cool without saying 'massive', 'random', 'chill' or more recently 'lush' in each sentence. Even the otherwise innocent 'well' becomes a grating adjective when misused, as in 'I was well hungry', instead of 'very hungry'.
Somehow 'shite' took the place of 'shit', as if it is more acceptable or less rude. I think people can guess what the root word was, so it is a thin dishuise. I don't know if they say 'I need to do a shite now'.
Most annoying is the Brit usage of 'obviously' as a filler. Each sentence will be peppered with 'obviously', even when they are explaining something highly complex and not at all obvious. I like to interrupt to inform them that "It's not obvious to me!"
And of course the omnipresent 'literally', as if that big word gives extra thrust to their statement. "I was literally cleaning my teeth when I noticed some were literally missing!'
Australians also have their annoying expressions. A friend from Australia recently stayed for a few days, and after he heard me tease another friend about some word he overused, the Australian said "I suppose even I might have such pet words". I asked if he seriously didn't know what his were, and he claimed he didn't. In every sentence he included 'sort of' and 'kind of' at least two or three times, often twice in succession.
A funny Australian filler 'and that' is used instead of 'etc'. Aussies will say 'I was cleaning the car and that, when I found some money and that under the seat'. The post-match cricket captain interview goes something like this: "Yes we lost so we've sort of got to put our heads down and that, so we can sort of do better in the next match".
There are numerous 'business' words and expressions that office workers hear on CNN and adopt for frequent use in order to sound more professional. A typical sentence in a business meeting goes something like this:
"Again, let's touch base off-line so before actioning you can double-check the data landscape on the ground and give us a heads-up at close of play, because as I say, the bottom line is our mindset has to think outside the box so going forward we can be on the same page at the end of the day, then we can baseline the downstream impact to achieve closure in the current marketplace."
Brits like to use 'absolutely' instead of 'yes' to answer questions. The first time it sounds authoritative, but when it's repeated compulsively you realise the speaker has no more authority than a parrot.
This is the thing that makes language misuse so repulsive: the mechanicality of it. Parrots hear something and repeat it, and humans do the same, with some filtering, depending on whom they hear it from and whom they are trying to impress. Is it fear of being true to ourselves, of consistently being one person that stops us from creating sentences?
It seems we feel the need to adjust our accent, words and pronunciation to be more acceptable to the listener, rather than to be better understood.
Often I've overheard an expat with the merest hint of Australian accent, but when I ask if they are Australian they immediately adopt the roughest yobbo accent you would hear in the outback.
It's such a strong fear that we automatically adopt an artificial personality at the drop of a hat, thereby giving up our truer self, selling our soul for a pittance.
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