“Causing something to take place” isn’t incorrect. But 99 times out of 100, the native speaker would say it was “made to happen”.
Category Archives: Overused words
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.
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.
Support
A perfectly good word, but hugely less common than its Dutch equivalent. So Dutch authors overuse it horrendously.
In relation to, with regard to
Texts by Dutch authors tend to be full of little phrases like these. Sure, they have their place, but there’s often a natural one-word alternative.
Performance
“Performance” is the noun that comes from “to perform”. But it’s not the right word to use for carrying out tasks or doing work: the overtones are too confusing.
Relations and relationships
Dutch uses the same word for both (relatie), but the meanings in English are distinctly different.
Among other things
Although it’s valid English, it’s not all that common a phrase and often not the most natural equivalent of the Dutch “onder andere”.
Ambition
Ambition isn’t always purely about positive goals. There can be overtones of being hell-bent on achieving them: being greedy, self-serving and unscrupulous.
They seek him here, they seek him there
To ‘seek’ is another of those words that are very similar to a much more everyday Dutch equivalent. It therefore gets heavily overused in Dunglish.
