J. Irwin Brown

“ That same afternoon I reported the affair to Enderby, who grew quite gruff and crusty before I had finished the narration.
“Didn’t I warn you”, he grumbled, “against those horrid expressions that you seem so fond of? You must really take care, O’Neill,—or I won’t speak to you as long as you stay in Holland.”
It was useless to assure him that I had referred to the ‘lightning-conductor’ merely in its permissible and scientific sense. He would listen to no explanations. “You simply can’t imagine how shocking all that talk of yours sounds, or you wouldn’t attempt to justify your vulgarity.” ”

“ Thus I conjectured that its meaning might be ‘quill pen’; but my confidence in the dictionary was by this time much shaken.
“Wilt gij my toestaan”, I said, “U te vragen?” “Ja, mijnheer!” he replied expectantly.
Then I got a little confused, and no wonder. “Durf ik zoo beleefd te kunnen zijn!... om mij mede te deelen en ... mij te verwittigen?” I lost myself again. It’s easy to begin a Dutch conversation [30] but hard to get out of it with honour. Like a drowning man clutching at a straw I grasped at something: “Verkoopt jullie hoenderhokken ... of hoenderhokkjes?” ”

“ Starting one morning for a long ramble in the country I took the first stage by tram. It was very early, and as there were no other passengers, the conductor was disposed to be communicative. He was absolutely eager to talk, and he came up to me at once.
Now I have noticed that at one time it is much easier to express oneself in a foreign language than at another.
Sometimes the grammar you have mastered becomes positively oppressive, and your tongue refuses to lend itself to the task. ”

“ Is his name like the word for lightning? May I not refer to him?”
“O’Neill”, exclaimed Enderby, rising suddenly off his seat, “you are surely not quite well!”
“What is it?” he said, “were you out long in the sun? That appelmoes must have gone to your head! Tell me all that happened to you.”
I told him the whole day’s adventures; and then I learnt that Mijnheer Hiernaast is—not necessarily an Official of the Government or a member of the Tweede Kamer; indeed that he is no particular person at all; but—just the gentleman who lives next door to you, wherever you happen to be. ”

“ Enderby told her all I required, and then went away. It was like being thrown into the sea, as you may guess; but I imagined I should soon learn to swim. There’s nothing like being cast completely on your own resources, they say. Still it was a bit awkward at coffee-time, when the landlady came up and talked. She poured forth a rapid and resistless stream of friendly Dutch upon me, while I nodded in the intervals and tried to think. It was a very one-sided business. ”

“ Thank you ever so much for the pleasure you gave me by sending me the account of your friend O’Neill’s experiences in our country.
It is excellent fun and the whole thing is full of quiet humour.
It cannot but be highly appreciated by all Dutch people who are trying to master the difficulties of English, and often despair of finding the right word for the right place. To all such it will be quite a treat to see how their vernacular puzzled your fellow-countryman. ”

“ You warned me against lightning—quite needlessly, you now admit—but you never said a syllable about that really dangerous word conductor.”
But to return to my trip that lovely morning. The tram duly reached ‘Simplex’, and the conductor was unfeignedly relieved to see me alight.
It was perfect weather, and my annoyances were soon forgotten. There was such a shimmer and haze and play of light over the wide landscape as I have seen only in Holland.
I was delighted. Such a scene is an inspiration. It makes one wish to be a painter or a poet or something. ”

“ The vendor of these objects of art spoke perfect English; it was a delight to hear him. So pleased was I with my purchases, that I hastened home, there and then, and adding my own artistic treasures, made a little square package of it all for my aunt Rebecca in Connemara, Killery Bay,—a place renowned for its beautiful sunsets and splendid salmon.
My aunt is artistic—she herself used to draw [78] when she was young—and I knew that nothing would please her better, as a present from Holland, than a number of carefully chosen water-colours. ”

“ For I was quite determined to stick by the principle I had learnt in the pen-shop, and use only one Dutch word for one word in English. But which one? The dictionary had a second part to it, Dutch into English. So I felt sure in my innocence that I could hunt down anything and get its exact signification.
I tried ‘boordje’.
It was a bad omen that ‘boordje’ didn’t figure in the Dutch-English part at all. Naturally a man reasons that if boordje really means a common thing like collar—an article of attire in daily use—it would surely be given a place in a Dutch-English lexicon. It wasn’t there ”

“ Being by this time a trifle tired, I conceived the idea of driving back to the Hague, for it seemed too far to walk. In this design I was encouraged by the presence of a considerable number of vehicles with horses, standing about.
On examining my dictionary to get the Dutch idiom for ‘drive home’ I discovered three curious translations for drive: ‘rijden’, ‘drijven’ (used, I was informed, of ice) and ‘jagen.’
Now seeing that ‘rijden’, meant ‘to ride’, and ‘jagen,’ to ‘hunt,’ and the other word was restricted to icebergs, there really appeared to be a lack of the precise term I needed. ”

“ He had been motoring; and was coming back from Amsterdam when some pinion had given way, and he had to stop at the Uitspanning for repairs. He came up to me and sat down saying: “Well, O’Neill, you’re a long way from home; how did you get here? What are you taking this hot weather?”
“Indeed,” said I, “I don’t exactly know. It’s apple-squash, or rather a sort of apple lemonade,—cider, I believe.”
“Ah,” said he with surprise, “you talked English, I suppose?”
“Not at all,—not a word. I never speak English now. It was all Dutch.” ”

“ Each had his own story to tell, but we waited in vain for our host to unbosom himself on the subject of Dutch. Yet he was understood to have had thrilling experiences in the Hague in August.
By a few gentle hints we endeavoured to elicit from him some talk about his linguistic adventures, and, not succeeding very well, I at last asked him point-blank if he didn’t find Dutch hard.
“Yes”, said O’Neill promptly, in answer to my question. “Yes: it certainly is hard!” he repeated, as he balanced the poker, preparatory to smashing [2] the biggest piece of coal on the fire. ”

“ GRAMMAR AND PHRASE BOOK.
“Well”, said O’Neill with a kind of sickly smile, “I didn’t get so very much time, you see, either for the Literature or for the Language. Of course there was much sight-seeing, and—I spent a good deal of time over the pictures, which——”
The Philosopher shut his eyes, heaved an audible sigh, but said nothing.
“And”, continued Jack hastily without seeming to notice the interruption, “my efforts to speak Dutch were not always appreciated”.
“Really?” said the First Year’s man, with sudden interest. ”

“ Jack O’Neill had worked too closely at his mathematics the winter before, and had taken a long holiday in summer. A month of this he had spent in Holland to master the Dutch language, he said, and get a good general acquaintance with Dutch Literature. These had been great plans, and we were naturally eager to learn how they had succeeded. We had seen, however, very little of Jack since his return, as he had been most of the time at his aunt’s place in Connemara. Now that he was back at Trinity safe and sound, we naturally expected to get the news sooner or later. ”

“ On considering this utterance of his I seemed to recognise “woujeme” as an old friend. Wasn’t that the introductory particle that was not in the dictionary and which resembled the Latin ‘nonne’? Then ‘gek’ was remarkably like ‘hek’, which I knew to be ‘gate’.
The landlady had always been talking about the ‘hek’ being open,—a state of affairs which she strongly objected to, because dogs were in the habit of strolling in and looking rudely at her through the kitchen window.
Now I knew that it would be the easiest thing in life for ‘gek’ to be mistaken for ‘hek’. ”

“ There is no chance of practice unless you get away from everybody that speaks English. That was not too easy, I tell you. But Enderby helped me, and we searched about the Hague for two whole days. At last we found perfectly charming rooms opposite a canal; the landlady didn’t know a word of English. She knew Dutch, though, all right. Fluent, did you say? I should think she was. A perfect marvel. No need of the dictionary, you know.—Verbs all in their proper places—and plenty of them! ”

“ London policemen often drop h’s in one place and put them in at another. Why shouldn’t a Hague policeman do something similar? You could hardly expect a policeman to speak the language with absolute accuracy.
So ‘gek houwe’ would probably be a common provincialism for ‘hek houden’. And I could easily guess, on the analogy of ‘stalhouwer’, what hekhouwer’ would mean. It would be, no doubt, a ‘man that made and sold gates’. ‘Vóór den gekhouwe (r) ’ [74] would then be, as nearly as possible, the idiom for ‘in front of the gate factory.’
MAAR—WAAR WOONT HIJ? ”

“ There was a penholder in the room, so what I needed was only nibs. Having already with much pain made my selection among the have you’s, I now looked up nib in the dictionary. Nib was represented by five words, three of which seemed likely enough to be right, i. e. neb, punt, and snavel. Accordingly I wrote these down and worked out their plurals and diminutives. The doubtful ones I kept in reserve. Why did I fancy diminutives? [23] Oh, the grammar put me on the way of finding them, and I got quite partial to their use. It is such a comfort, you know, they are all neuter. ”

“ You wrote me that.”
“Well,” said Jack, sitting bolt upright, “I know better now; and I stopped talking Dutch when I began to understand myself. You have to hunt in the dark,” he explained, “to catch the exact word or the proper idiom—and a man likes to know what he is talking about, himself. The language isn’t child’s play, that’s the truth. But it’s a fine country. You should see the light when—”
O’NEILL’S GREAT PLANS.
“Oh,” said the Philosopher, “we don’t want to [4] hear any more about the country. ”

“ As the man who talks most has generally the situation in his own hand, I determined to keep the greater part of the conversation to myself. All the likely sentences that could possibly be of avail I copied out of the phrase-book on a sheet of foolscap. Some new expressions and idioms were added, and committed as thoroughly as possible to memory.
And, by the way, I made use of a fresh discovery—a [92] number of algemeene opmerkingen from the end of the grammar. ”

“ For here have I been in Holland for fifteen years, and I never even heard of apple lemonade yet. To tell you the truth, I should not know how to ask for it. My boy, I congratulate you on your linguistic enterprise!”
The waiter reappeared just then, and Enderby interposed, “Mynheer heeft iets besteld, nietwaar? Wat is dat voor een drankje? Geen limonade?”
MELOEN MET APPELMOES.
“Nee, menheer”, said the waiter in a complaining [62] tone, “volstrekt niet, mynheer is wat vreemd, ziet u; want,” and here his voice sank to a horrified whisper, “menheer eet meloen met appelmoes!” ”

“ It shows what a literary people the Dutch are, that they are pleased beyond measure when a foreigner in conversation refers to any small technicality out of the grammar. Indeed so encouraged was I by all this enthusiasm that I boldly made use of my remaining words.
“Mynheer! wilt u mij toestaan U te vragen..... verkoopt gy snavels?” ”

“ Op hoogst geestige wijze vertelde de Heer Brown van des heeren O’Neill onverstoorbaren ijver om Hollandsch te willen spreken, en de honderden bokken, die de Brit schoot, deden de toehoorders soms onbedaarlijk lachen, vooral zijn kennismaking met den heer van het bevolkingsregisterbureau, zijn onderhoud met de waschvrouw bij het opmaken der waschlijst, zijn uitstapje naar den Haag, de wijze waarop hij “Have jou pens” vertaalde, en de manier waarop hij zich in verschillende winkels trachtte duidelijk te maken waren hoogst amusant. ”

“ I did not press this word on him, as I scarcely ever use quill pens; and it was as likely as not that the dictionary had failed me again.
I set him at his ease by a courteous phrase or two. “Het geeft niets—het hindert niet—het komt er niet op aan.” Then refraining from further speech, I pointed out some nibs with my umbrella, and, having secured a box of excellent J pens, made good my retreat under cover of a friendly phrase or two: “Mijnheer! het spijt mij zeer; maar ik moet afscheid nemen. Vaarwel.” ”

“ You needn’t go over them again”.
“But I thought”, piped the First year’s man, who always came in with the Professor and never quite comprehended what was going on, “I thought that the ‘Night Watch’ was not by Paul Potter. Surely the ‘Night Watch’ and the ‘Anatomy Lesson’ are two well-known pictures by Remb—” “Never mind what you thought!” interrupted the Professor. “Don’t think, it’s bad for your constitution. And above all things don’t try to be accurate, or you’ll get yourself into trouble.”
“The Philosopher’s right,” I urged. “Our minds are a chaos after O’Neill’s descriptions. ”

“ Well, to resume my story, I picked out the most harmless of the have you’s, and was proceeding to work out the formula for ‘Have you pens,’ when to my consternation my eye fell on a dreadful warning, a kind of threat.
N.B. Important!—The foreigner is distinctly given to understand that he must commit to memory some polite phrases before engaging in conversation (see page 201) and study the chief sentences of a good phrase book. All pronouns savouring of familiarity are to be carefully avoided. ”

“ WHAT’S PUT IN DUTCH?
Two common English verbs I found very difficult to render exactly. These were ‘drive’ and ‘put’.
‘Put’ you have to use so often that it is certainly provoking to hunt for a new verb almost every time you have a fresh order to give. ”

“ It was not easy to find any phrases out of these epistles suitable for working in to my note about the umbrella.
They were valuable as examples, merely for the general rhythm and style, as it were, and then only to a slight extent. As my missive was of a genre quite distinct from these models, I felt justified in composing it in my own way. ”