Righting English That’s Gone Dutch
Joy Burrough – Boenisch
166 pages including index
published in 2004
I was going to start this review with a funny paragraph containing most or all of the errors Joy Burrough – Boenisch talks about in her book, but decided to be merciful and spare you the hilarity. If you do want examples, I’m sure I’ve made most of the mistakes she mentions at one time or another, either here or on my other blogs. Though I pride myself — like everybody else in the Netherlands — on my good command of English, both written and spoken, I still make the ocassional mistake, especially when tired or in a hurry. It’s in those circumstances, when I’m not paying quite enough attention to what I’m writing and rely on instinct, that Dutch habits take over and mistakes are made, because I
use the wrong translation, attempt to use Dutch rules of grammar, or do something else that works in Dutch but not as well or at all in English.
Which is what Righting English That’s Gone Dutch is all about: those errors people with Dutch as their first language make in English when they go by assumptions carried over from the Dutch. It’s intended for people who are perfectly comfortable writing in English, perhaps a little
bit too comfortable, but who don’t quite have the command of English a native speaker would have. As the author puts it, it’s for people who write perfectly grammatical English, but with a Dutch accent: Dunglish. As such Righting English That’s Gone Dutch isn’t intended for people who only have a modest grasp of English, but for those of us who can write English perfectly well, apart from several niggling habits we’ve carried over from Dutch.