Reiska said:Shouldn't that be Wup, Holland, Wup?
Tom Bellemare said:I used to get these letters about Utilities or weird banking/tax/government things and they had all of these run-on words that were very difficult to figure out.
Tom Bellemare said:The Dutch dictionary was about 3 times as big as an unabridged English dictionary.
I asked our secretary why and it made perfect sense when she pointed out that Germanic cultures just kept making more combo-words and they were continually adopted as part of the official dictionaries. She said the dictionary just grew and grew and grew.
Could be - I just heard that alot in Germany when the world cup was there some years ago. Lots of very rowdy and loud people in bright orange having a ball on the streets and hollering something that sounded like Wup, Holland, Wup, but it could be just as well Hup [big grin]cruiten said:Reiska said:Shouldn't that be Wup, Holland, Wup?
I think that you might be referring to "Hup Holland Hup"...
Roughly translated it means something like "Go Holland Go" and it comes from a Dutch "voetbal lied" (soccer song) that was written a couple of years after the end of World War II.
Alex said:We use combo words, yes, but when you look at the size of the language, Dutch has about 25.000 words, and English 75.000. When we watch TV, I am often asked to translate an english word and I can't, because there's no dutch equivalent, so I can only describe it.
Tom Bellemare said:Merriam Webster estimates that there are around 1 million words in the English language and the director of the Dutch institute of Lexicality estimates more than 5 million words are used in Dutch.
That kind of supports our former secretary's assertion. She had a stack of 4 Dutch dictionaries that were each about the size of an unabridged dictionary of the English language.
Now, back to futbal...
Does anyone know how the officials and the players from so many different countries with so many different languages communicate? Is it all by signals?
Tom
Tom Bellemare said:Merriam Webster estimates that there are around 1 million words in the English language and the director of the Dutch institute of Lexicality estimates more than 5 million words are used in Dutch.
Tom Bellemare said:Does anyone know how the officials and the players from so many different countries with so many different languages communicate? Is it all by signals?
SittingElf said:The refs are all language challenged. (PC designation) [big grin]
My German Landlord's son is a FIFA referee....and can't speak a word of English. That being said, he communicates with the language of flags! [scared]
You know... if the USA somehow performed a miracle and won the World Cup, soccer would become the fastest growing sport in the States!
Right now, it's Curling! [blink]
Cheers,
Frank
SittingElf said:The refs are all language challenged. (PC designation) [big grin]
My German Landlord's son is a FIFA referee....and can't speak a word of English. That being said, he communicates with the language of flags! [scared]
You know... if the USA somehow performed a miracle and won the World Cup, soccer would become the fastest growing sport in the States!
Right now, it's Curling! [blink]
Cheers,
Frank