Dutch authors have a big tendency to use the preposition “on” in phrases like these.
Author Archives: Mike Wilkinson
Decimal coinage
Fifty years ago this week, Britain got rid of its notorious system of pounds, shillings and pence: great for dividing fractions in medieval times, but not much use with computers.
Mo-Fr, Sa+Su
You’re probably not going to confuse anybody by using two-letter abbreviations for days. But English doesn’t do that.
Propaedeutic? Um…
A dictionary-only word that you shouldn’t use in English. (With or without the -ae- spelling variant.) Nobody knows it.
Don’t get personal
Remember that ‘personal’ often has overtones of private, intimate and secret and not merely ‘related to the individual’.
The difference between both…
Unlike Dutch, English uses “the two” or “the two of them” and not “both” for comparisons and differences.
Sir McCartney…?
Nope. On the rare occasions you’re referring to somone with the title, it goes with the first name: Sir Paul. Otherwise ‘sir’ is a standalone without any name attached.
The most awarded beer in the Netherlands
Oh really? Who have they awarded it to?
Tautologous doublures
In an effort to make a text sound richer and wordier, Dutch authors sometimes include both the Dutch and English in the same phrase.
Only if…
Starting a full sentence with those two words is pretty much guaranteed to get your knickers in a twist, grammatically.
