The verb “to tell” is quite widely used and versatile in English, but comparatively rarely used by non-natives.
Category Archives: Wrong register
Youth and young people
“Youth” has several meanings but often with an old-fashioned, condescending, daddy-knows-best feel to it.
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.
Woods, forests and jungles
Your everyday, common-or-garden patch of countryside with trees is a wood or woodland. Forests are bigger, darker and nastier; jungles are definitely more exotic.
Hitting the right register
Dutch is rich in synonyms (often pairs with Germanic and Latinate roots). The nuances of usage aren’t quite the same – and it’s an issue in English too.
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.
Hanging prepositions
When two different prepositions are needed in a list of actions, it can read better if you repeat the noun (or use “it” or “them” as a placeholder).
Medical Latin
Don’t assume that Latin in Dutch medical texts will be the same in English: this is often not the case. Abbreviations in particular can be incomprehensible to English speakers, even doctors
People persons
The plural of person is ‘people’, except in legalese and occasional old-fashioned texts.
Adequate
Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon whose skills are adequate? Or would you rather have one who’s good?
