Fire and Ice

As of last Monday, I had officially lost that lovin' feeling with respect to the Dutch language.

This was mostly because I had spent a very long day trying desperately to communicate enough to my new Dutch co-worker about her new job that I could reasonably justify abandoning her for a short trip to the U.S. this week.

For the record, I feel more than a little guilty about throwing her to the lions in just her second week of work. Then I remind myself that unlike me, she can actually understand what everyone around her is saying.

With that in mind, it seems less like lions and more like hostile housecats.

But I've rekindled the Dutch flame at least a little bit, thanks to two happy developments in my cozy and largely narcissistic world of language learning.

One is that my new co-worker has a great sense of humor and is full of interesting new expressions.

Even as I flail about in Dutch, trying to explain the finer points of receiving visitors and date-stamping mail, our conversations are dotted with delightful, quirky moments of language learning.

On Wednesday, for example, she suggested gently that we een einde aan de dag breien, or knit an end to the day.

Compared to the expressions I use when it's quitting time — I'm outta here! is one that immediately comes to mind — knitting an end to the day just seems so charming and civilized.

The second development was an unexpected comment about holes in the ice from an alert Peanut Cheese reader named Gerben.

As you may remember, I wrote a few months ago about the Dutch expression vreemde eend in de bijt, an extremely relevant (for me) way to describe a duck who doesn't fit in with the other ducks in that particular hole in the ice.

What I didn't know is that the Dutch have not one but TWO words that mean hole in the ice:

We actually have two words for a hole in the ice. A bijt is made on purpose, for example because you want to go fishing or make sure the ducks have something to drink.

A wak is one that is created by the wind or current, and is the kind that pops up unexpectedly and that you fall into when skating.

I can't even really explain why this thrills me so much.

Maybe it's just that I was already highly amused by the first Dutch word for hole in the ice.

A second Dutch word for hole in the ice is the kind of thing that pops up unexpectedly and makes me smile to myself for days.

Orientation

I had every intention of devoting this week's Peanut Cheese to picayune but delightful things about the Dutch language.

For example: uitvaartdienst, the Dutch word for funeral home, which translates literally (at least in my mind) to something like journey out service.

Or the Dutch verb for pacing back and forth, which is ijsberen. Literally? To polar bear.

Tangent alert!

In my paranoia about at least trying to get the English words right, I quickly looked up picayune to make sure that it means what I think it means.

In the process, I learned that online dictionary listings now include "things that rhyme with word x" as a standard feature.

I present to you what might possibly be the most delightful list of words ever listed:

Afternoon, apolune, barracoon, Brigadoon, call the tune, Cameroon, greasy spoon, harvest moon, honeymoon, importune, macaroon, octoroon, opportune, pantaloon, perilune, picaroon, Saskatoon, silver spoon, tablespoon.

Clearly, this is how the Internet redeems itself.

In my book, picayune / call the tune / Cameroon / greasy spoon more or less makes up for the existence of Linked In.

Learning about ijsberen seriously made my month. But even so, today is not the day for a wandering soliloquy about the tiny thrills of learning a second language.

After months of eager anticipation, today was my first day with a Dutch co-worker we've hired to take on the telephone calls and other Dutch-language work that I've been butchering since mid-March.

The only problem is that first I need to provide a hefty amount of training and orientation. In Dutch.

For the record: my new coworker is delightful. And patient. And she doesn't grimace too much when I go off the rails in what many people call not a language but a throat disease.

But by about mid-afternoon today, my honeymoon with the Dutch language was officially over as I tried to explain in detail how the phones are supposed to work.

It's too bad someone didn't record the whole thing. A few decades from now, I might find it very funny to hear.

In the meantime, let's hope that she understands what I mean when I say, first these buttons is push then talk and if he present is can you button one more time push.