JUST A LITTLE ABOUT THAT ENGLISH...

‘Decline of the Dutch language’ was recently said about a piece of mine that went online and that had not yet gone through our final editing process. At least, that was the case if you came across my piece via Facebook, because it had certainly been reviewed, corrected, and adjusted online, but for some crazy reason, it takes a little while before you get to the updated version. Anyway, the grammar police were on it again and yes, of course, it’s a bit hard to swallow when you read the reactions. People can be harsh online and I don’t want to say that it’s not allowed, but whatever happened to what Ellen DeGeneres always encourages: be kind to one another. It costs you nothing.

Perhaps my perception has always been a bit different, but I thought it was known from the very beginning (I mean from the moment it became known that I would be one of the new editors of Amayzine) that it was quite awkward for me to type in Dutch and that my grammar indeed stumbled from time to time. I previously worked as a translator, always wrote everything in English, and read everything in English. Still actually; everything I do is often in English. I may not have the elegance and vocabulary scope of other editors when it comes to the Dutch language and I do indeed make mistakes from time to time, but through trial and error, you often learn the best, so thank god we have such a great editorial team from whom I learn every day. I also often see English mistakes pass by with others, but I will never bash them here. If you really want to say something about it, you can certainly do so in a better, or let me put it this way: friendlier way than sending someone hate messages (no joke, I received those).

“take it or leave it.”

And another thing: last week during our (champagne included), I was exhausted on Saturday and still dead tired on Sunday. So I took Monday off and it was quite a party. I had slept in that weekend, so on that Monday I got up pretty early (half past 9) and did whatever I felt like all day. I got to present an award to Jason Denham. Jason himself is British, so I thought it was fitting to introduce him in English. A bit unfortunate though if you get to receive an award and have no idea what the person handing it to you said? But well, there I was, somewhat nervous which made my filler word(s) used a bit more often than intended. Luckily, I didn’t use the word ‘like’, because like, that just sounds like, ridiculous. But ‘you know’ comes out of my mouth just a bit more often, including my extremely American accent.

It turned out afterwards that someone had an opinion about this too. Whether I sometimes found it ‘cool’ to speak with an American accent. As if I did it on purpose. This is how I really talk. I might also use English words and phrases very often in my texts, but really, come have a cup of coffee with me, because this is how I talk in real life, take it or leave it.

Fortunately, there were the wise words of May who reassured me: if people are jealous of something, they make it ridiculous. And that we sometimes make a grammatical mistake here and there, guys, that’s human. We’re only human after all...