When converting units, be aware that not all the imperial measures are the same in US and UK English (let alone the equivalent legacy words in Dutch).
Author Archives: Mike Wilkinson
Executing, accomplishing, performing
When a task is being done, far simpler alternatives are available. The one that is most commonly overlooked is to “carry out”.
A bit of this and that
Strangely enough, the usage of those two simple, everyday words is quite often the other way round in Dutch when referring to abstracts rather than tangible objects.
What comes between junior and senior?
Well, not “medior” at any rate. That’s a fabrication, an anglicization.
Habits such as: colons before lists
Dutch typography regularly seems to use a superfluous colon to introduce a list of items – sometimes even a ‘list’ of one!
“Euro” as a prefix
Eurocrat, Eurotrash, Eurospeak… prefixing something with “Euro” in English is often intended as a negative connotation. Unlike on the Continent.
Paying attention
An ‘attentie’ in Dutch is a small gift, just a little something to show appreciation. The English word ‘attention’ doesn’t have that meaning.
Don’t mention it
When someone mentions something, it’s a minor sideline, a small point. “Oh, by the way…” Not a general verb for a statement in a report or document.
Survival rations
The relative numeric sizes of things are expressed as a ratio, not a ration.
Chapter and verse
A document really has to be pretty large before you can call its subdivisions “chapters”. We’re talking a small book, not a ten-pager.
