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.