LOCAL COLOUR.
SCHEI UIT! SCHIET OP! TOE DAN!--GUNST! HEUS! MIS!--ZANIK NOU NIET.--THE
WORD FOR LIGHTNING.--IS TO BE ESCHEWED.
After these efforts I judged it wise to take a day or two's rest from
the actual practice of Dutch conversation till my nerves had recovered
their tone, and until I had mastered more of the grammar and the idiom.
I was the more concerned to do so as Enderby, to whom I had related my
purchase of the pens, told me that my language on that occasion had
been much too stiff and formal. For the purpose then of acquiring an
everyday vocabulary I listened attentively to the talk in the streets
and tram-cars. Most of it was unintelligible to me, but I caught up
some vigorous and happy phrases here and there. These I soon learned to
pronounce in a kind of way, but it was difficult to get at their exact
meaning, for many popular idioms did not appear in my dictionary at all.
There was a vocable that occasioned me some perplexity--indeed a haze
envelopes it still. It sounded like _Eris_, but had nothing to do
with the Goddess of Strife. It doesn't seem to have any particular
signification, and you can introduce it anywhere to give a finish to
your style. Some people were fond of _evetjes_, a word of the same
class, on which none of my books shed the least light. Though my
authorities were likewise silent about _Toe! toe dan_, I perceived that
this was the proper expression for courteous appeal, and as such I have
always used it, with confidence and success.
Two curious imperative moods, which were popular at the street corners,
I did find in my grammar. They belong to that provoking category of
words that, as you touch them carelessly, break up into smaller verbs
and prepositions. I used to compare them mentally to those lizards
that drop their tails when you handle them roughly. Only instead of
tails these _werkwoorden_ drop their _voorzetsels_, which turn up again
unexpectedly in distant parts of the sentence. One of these "lizards"
was _schei uit_, which means indifferently, 'stop talking now',
'analyse it' and 'go away'. It was pleasant to hear so scientific a
term as schei er uit or schiet nouw op (shoot up now, aim high) used so
often. I soon became quite dexterous in employing them myself. On the
whole I got little help from my dictionary in tracing out the idioms of
everyday live. Two interrogative particles, for example, without which
the lower classes, when excited, could hardly ask a question, were
quite ignored both by Boyton and the Woordenboek. The were _Zaliku_ and
_Woujeme_. I was left to conjecture the force of these particles--that
they were forcible I could see--might remotely resemble that of the
familiar num or nonne of Latin.
Occasionally animated interlocutors became suddenly oracular: their
flow of language stopped and they uttered some one solitary syllable
such as _Gunst!_ or _heus!_ or _mis!_ or _raak!_ These single shots
were often most effective, but I never could imitate them successfully.
_Ach!_ was safe mostly for "I'm sorry"; _Och!_ for "I don't care"; and
I discovered a treasure in _Hé!_ That is a contraction for "Do you
really mean it?" On the other hand _Hè!_ I found was "Shocking!" "How
very dreadful!" When I used these little words I seemed never quite to
hit the bull's eye, however. Invariably I said either more or less
than I intended. But I made very good play with pretty triplets like
_'t zal wel_, and _schei er uit_, and with expressions of approval:
_da's leuk_, _aardig hoor_, _och kom_. It gives a vivid local colour
to your conversation if you drop in now and again a homely fresh idiom
caught from the lips of the people. That prevents one's vocabulary
becoming too bookish. You can give quite a realistic flavour to your
remarks by interjecting occasionally _waarempeltjes_ or _Wel van
mijn leven!_ Among the encouraging ejaculations of every day I soon
concluded that none was more likely to prove useful than "_Zanik nou
niet_", a popular favourite which one may render roughly by "Pray,
don't mention it", "Don't trouble about it". This idiom has been simply
invaluable.
Anomalies of pronunciation were not numerous, but they existed. _Nouw_,
a common word, must be spelt _nu_; and the advice _duwen_, which
was printed up on the inner door of the Post-Office, was pronounced
_douwe_. Most enigmatical perhaps was the contrast between the barber's
notice on the window of his establishment, and what he said to you when
you entered. Outside it was _haarsnijden_ and never anything else.
That is the printed form; inside, however, you must pronounce it
_haarknippen_.
Still these are trifles compared with the real puzzles. I witnessed
a street dispute one evening. It was about herring, I think, but I
really couldn't follow the one thousandth part of the vigorous debate.
Picturesque idioms were bandied to and fro; happily no harm was done.
One could not help noticing that the Grammar-book was right. Jij and
jou were freely employed, and the disputants did not once address each
other as U or UEdele. On that occasion there was another epithet or
pronoun or interjection, which none of my previous studies had at all
prepared me for. Turning it up in the dictionary as well as I could, I
learnt that it might be translated by 'lightning', and that it was an
ordinary noun. Next day I enquired of Enderby if the word for lightning
could ever be employed as an interrogative particle or a pronoun. He
was horrified and said "Please don't be vulgar".
"All right," I replied, "I don't intend to be, but what about that
personal pronoun?"
"Hush!" he said. "Stop; it's not a pronoun."
"Well whatever it is," I told him, "noun or pronoun, if you had heard
it used as I did, you would admit that it was very _personal_."
"Don't be frivolous," he retorted solemnly, "and let me give you a
piece of advice. As long as you are in Holland never let anyone hear
you utter that word. Say _onweer_ or _weerlicht_. The other word is not
decent, it is almost wicked."
"There now; don't be surly", I reasoned, "the thing is in the
dictionary."
"Never mind. That's for science or for poetry. Then it's all right. But
_you_ had better have nothing to do with it. Try and forget it."
I did try. But I didn't succeed.
For the more trouble you take to forget a thing, the better you
remember it. At least that's my experience, and if I strain every nerve
to get a word out of my head, it simply never goes! So if there be a
Dutch noun that I recall accurately and without effort, it is just the
scientific and poetical term for 'lightning'.