One of the great joys of being resident in Netherlands is the diversity of the language and in many ways it has given the English and Scottish language many of their words or colloquial terms.Mainly about fish and religion, which they often enjoy raw.
Today, I was sitting, drinking coffee in lengthy conversation with my, enduring and ever patient Dutch language coach (docent). We were discussing the autumn weather and the changes that it brings to the garden, both here in the Flatlands and back in the UK.
The chat move around to the type of flowers and plants that you would expect to see at this time and that brought us headlong to 'heide' (pronounced 'hay'), which is the Dutch for heather or Erica Vulgaris. The blooming heather moors of my youth. I remember them well!
In my ignorance and confusion I was sure that the word that I heard pronounced as 'hay' was normally the Dutch word for a shark but my teacher quickly chastised me and assured me that the Dutch word for a shark is pronounced as 'ha-a-ay', a subtle difference but one that could be of great importance while gardening or scuba diving.
Imagine the tragedy and chaos that would descend if, whilst visiting your local garden centre and a hungry rogue shark would appear, near to your children (kinderen). Oh no! You would be unable to alert them 'Look out kids, there's a white-tipped reef heather behind you. Run for your lives!'
- or -
Maybe you would terrify them unnecessarily by alerting them to a danger that did not exist. 'Hey, look kids! That's a pretty looking big purple shark behind you, isn't it? Do you think mummy would like it as a present, gift wrapped with a big bow on it? She would be surprised!'
The pen may be mightier than any sword but the ammunition is surely the language used and as an ex-pat Scot I still cannot tell my plants from my predators! Still not as bad as mistaking the King (koning) for a rabbit (konijn), though!
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