Good one.
I remember one of my first English lessons back when i was 11.
The teacher chalked ‘ghoti’ on the blackboard, and asked who could read it out loud.

Of course, ‘ghoti’ should be pronounced as ‘fish’.
GH from enough,
O from women
TI from munition.

Again, i don’t mind a mistake, everyone makes them. What does bother me is when a Brit with aspirations to become American (okay, perhaps that’s not proof of a large intelligence) writes ‘would of’ where he ment ‘would have’ :rolleyes: Very annoying, and it’s because of errors like that occasionally i have to read some posts out loud (sometimes with some made-up accent) just to understand what is actually ment with a sentence.

– P – I – N – G –
An anecdote jumped up from the deeper dungeons of my memory… skip the following, it might be boring.

The first time i was in Poland for some planespotting, in 1994 IIRC, a technician of the Polish Air Force went with us for a few days to arrange us a few visits. There were four of us: three Dutch guys and one Brit (Phil, are you there?) so the conversation in the car was in English, and happily the Polish guy knew some English as well.
Biggest problem was with his pronounciation. Somehow he assumed that the vowel ‘A’ in English is pronounced as an ‘E’.
I can’t remember how many times he said “You went see the Iryda?” before we finally understood he asked us if we wanted to see those I-22s (Deblin was one of the bases visited), in stead of if we had already gone there to have a look at them…

Originally posted by JJ
I do have a feeling though that with the current government a lot of all the bureaucracywill go away. At least I hope so.

Euhhh… i sincerely doubt it. In the short term some of our beloved bureaucratic institutions will dissappear, but considering the level of organisation our society has, we’ll soon discover that a lot of this bureaucracy was created with a reason. Also, the mythical privatisation of former state-owned agencies/businesses/offices certainly did not diminish bureaucracy: just look at the railways, communications, and social insurances (especially the latter – being currently unemployed myself…).

I know it’s really fashionable these days to blame current economical problems on a ‘too large and inefficient bureaucracy’, and i guess for a part it is the Pim-legacy. But it has become a rather hollow phrase if you ask me: ‘bureaucracy’ has IMHO more become an easy-target scapegoat (goes down well with the voters too!) than a seriously defined problem which should be tackled. Of course, seriously defining and tackling bureaucracy will bring up it’s own bureaucracy-fighting bureaucracy itself…
And don’t forget that the Netherlands are more and more becoming a state where governmental responsibilities are pursued to the last straw: just look at the whole carnival surrounding the fireworks in both Enschede and Volendam. The increasing demand for such accountability-on-a-square-millimeter, and subsequent actions, will force the government to do even more micro-managing than before. Which IMHO means more bureaucratic institutions.

It is fun to know that this bureaucracy issue finally reared it’s head in the West. Back in the early 1990s i spend lots of time in former East Germany (haven’t seen a mass formation of Mi-6es fly since) and of course spend plenty of time drinking with locals. One of their larger dissapointments in having become Westerners was the massive amount of bureaucracy they now encountered in their life. Despite what many in the West believe (or still believe), bureaucratic institutions for the average persion were far less cumbersome in a (relatively well-off) socialist dictatorship than they are in a better-of liberal* democracy.

* = Liberal in the European sense of the word, just in case you’ve brainwashed too much by Arend-Jan Boekesteijn 😉

Originally posted by JJ
No offense intended, but for one all your cities look kinda, well, poor. Houses are dirty from the outside, most of them look like they hadn’t had a proper overhaul in thirty years, and everything looks so old. Still liked Brussels though :).

This is exactly one of the consequences of Belgium being in fact less ‘totalitarian’ than the Netherlands. The shabby look of many Belgian cities when compared to the Dutch ones is the most obvious result of the non-existance of Welstandscommissies en Nota’s Ruimtelijke Ordening in Belgium.

Jonathan, as for your argument with Benjamin (nice biblical clash of names here 😉 ) on an intrusive state vs. a less intrusive state: if you take some time and effort, you’ll find that on an individual level Belgium is far less ‘totalitarian’ (to use your words) than the country you’re living in. One of the reasons why i pay 95 eurocents for a litre of fuel in stead of 1 euro 20…

Originally posted by Florida Dude
…why argue over different opinions when ours don’t even matter?

I happen to believe in democracy. Logical consequence is that my opinion matters. I don’t really care if your political preference is with a more autoritarian form of government, but i suggest you to allow people with an opinion to ventilate that opinion. Even if it goes against your personal beliefs.

:devil:

Originally posted by Geforce
Even flaming seems much more polite if it’s written correctly ;).

Really? I always try to make my torch-postings as vicious, toxic and sickening possible – and i think using more or less proper English only helped in that respect!

Was it still there on Thursday?
I happened to drive by Valkenburg on Tuesday the 8th, and it was already parked there – appearantly it arrived last Friday. Quite a long stay for a VIP bird like that.

Fully agree!

It’s not that i mind spelling or grammar mistakes every now and then (i make plenty myself) especially since a lot of us here are non-native speakers, but i do appreciate it when people put at least some effort into making their posts readable.

Annoying as i might find SMS-type spelling (don’t even do that on my cell phone), i absolutely hate it if interpunction has been reduced to a single dot at the end of a post. Excuse me for not being able to read that.

I do like the fact that it’s often impossible to see from one’s style of posting if one is a native English speaker or not. People like Ink and Geforce write (as far as i can tell) cristal clear English, while on the other hand i could name a few…

It’s not just women who don’t always want children… i wouldn’t bother my offspring with half my genes either. I’d rather adopt (provided, yadayada, blahblah, etcetera). Anyway, i think stimulating people to have children doesn’t really work: no matter how large the benefits (child support, tax benefits), properly raising a child will cost a lot more.

Of course there will always be antisocial elements who disagree. A quote i overheard from a Dutch lowlife in the town i used to live in: “Oh, i see i’m going to get cut on my state support. Better get pregnant again!” – take note that of her six children, five are currently going to ‘special schools’ and don’t seem to be heading to a bright future anyway…

Which somewhere is kind of stupid: if you want to adopt a child, you would have to undergo enormous procedures and checks in order to prove you can be a worthy parent. On the other hand, if i would be an absolute lowlife nobody can prevent me from making a baby (provided i’ve got a suitably lowlife womb to plant my seed in, of course) just to abuse it the moment when it’s born. I know simply too much of those cases (both directly as through a few secondary channels) to just dismiss them as isolated tragedies.