CHAPTER VI.

A WASH-LIST IN DUTCH.

HOE TO SELECT YOUR WORD.--ETYMOLOGY AN UNSAFE GUIDE.--COMMON-SENSE MISLEADING.--ZIE-BENEDEN.--THE KERCHIEF OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.--A WORK OF ART.--VOOR EEN HOND.--MOET MIJNHEER NAAR DE GEVANGENIS?--QUEEN ELIZABETH IS UNKNOWN.--DON'T REASON.

It was a day or two after the purchase of the pens and I was beginning to feel my zeal for Dutch returning, when the landlady entered the sitting-room and fired my enthusiasm. She had a collar and a pocket-handkerchief in her hand; she waved them in the air and said "Voor de waschvrouw."

I caught the idea at once, banished the landlady, and sat down to make out a wash-list with the help of the dictionary and by the light of nature.

In bold characters I headed my document 'Lijst voor de Waschvrouw'; and turned up the word 'collar'. The usual thing, of course, met my gaze--a bewildering supply of equivalents--boordje, rollade, kraag, halsband, halssieraad. Now for the crucial question--on what principle am I to make my selection? For I was quite determined to stick by the principle I had learnt in the pen-shop, and use only one Dutch word for one word in English. But which one? The dictionary had a second part to it, Dutch into English. So I felt sure in my innocence that I could hunt down anything and get its exact signification.

I tried 'boordje'.

It was a bad omen that 'boordje' didn't figure in the Dutch-English part at all. Naturally a man reasons that if boordje really means a common thing like collar--an article of attire in daily use--it would surely be given a place in a Dutch-English lexicon. It wasn't there; and to confirm me in my determination to reject 'boordje', my eye caught 'boord'. 'Boord' was of fairly catholic application; for it included things as dissimilar as border, rim, shelf, seam, bank and hem. To make a diminutive of this,--'little border', 'little rim', 'little bank',--wouldn't bring one measurably nearer 'collar'. _Boordje_ therefore was rejected absolutely. So far good.

_Rollade_ was more promising. It suggested somehow a turn-down collar, and sounded courtly. But there was against it the strong objection that it didn't appear in the Dutch-English lexicon. _Rollade_ therefore was set aside provisionally.

_Kraag_ again offered well, but on inspection proved far too vague, for it included the ideas of cape, neck, nape and hood. That wouldn't do. It was far too uncertain. Therefore 'Kraag' was marked as 'doubtful.'

Diligence however is its own reward, and I found a prize in the next word. _Halsband_ answered every reasonable expectation. It stood every test I could apply to it.

The Dutch-English lexicon said it was 'collar', and nothing more.

Etymology confirmed the dictionary: _hals_, the neck; _band_, a band--a band for the neck--what could be clearer? If that wasn't collar, nothing was.

So I wrote down with much confidence, as my first item, _6 halsbanden_. I felt that this was an excellent beginning and that Dutch was not such a difficult language after all. _Gunst!_ I said to myself; for I felt so elated at my success, that in a way I was almost thinking in Dutch. Gunst, uitstekend! now for the next article.

That was _cuff_. Cuff said the dictionary was slag, manchet, oorveeg and handboei. Which would I take? I examined _slag_, and learnt it was the proper term for battle, fight, or opportunity.

This gave me much food for thought. I turned the matter over in every possible way, yet to no purpose. It was impossible to detect any necessary connection between a 'battle' or an 'opportunity', and 'a pair of cuffs'; so I dropped 'slag' without regret.

'_Oorveeg_' at first looked more attractive.

Its derivation, however, showed that it was something that 'skimmed along' the ear, or 'touched it lightly'!

Now it was conceivable that the sleeves or cuffs of ancient times had proved inconvenient; but that they had ever been so large as to flap about one's ears, I positively refused to believe.

It was quite a comfort to discover, as I did somewhat by accident, that 'oorveeg' meant a 'box on the ear.' Thus I could reject it without scruple--which I did.

_Manchet_ was so obviously French that I never looked at it twice. My grammar was most stringent in banishing all foreign words. Especially avoid French terms, it insisted. That was an easy rule. Geen Fransch woordje bij! So I avoided manchet.

I had now only one word left, which of course must be right. Handboei, moreover, defined its own functions with welcome precision. It obviously meant something to _fit_ closely round the _hand_; and with a sense of having achieved an intellectual victory, I set down on my list below the 'halsbanden', '_4 paar handboeien_'.

After this discipline in the art of 'rejections and exclusions' it seemed child's play to fix on the proper rendering for _sock_.

Sok--blyspel--vilten binnenzool--ploegschaar,--that was what the front part of the dictionary gave me to work upon. 'Blyspel' and 'ploegschaar' I dropped overboard without qualm, for I found they meant 'comedy' and 'ploughshare'; and when it came to choosing between sok and vilten binnenzool, I gave the first the preference, as my book shed no light whatever on vilten binnenzool.

I regretted this rather, as there was a fine air of dignity about the latter.

But I put down '4 paar sokken,' with a note of interrogation, and added 'vilten binnenzolen' in brackets--to make all clear.

There were seven 'handkerchiefs' to be translated into Dutch; and for 'handkerchief' the little fat Dictionary became more than usually oracular.

Opposite the English word it had two Dutch words without a comma between, so that I felt morally certain it was a case of vilten binnenzool again--a sort of euphonious compound which you must take in its entirety or not at all.

This compound word was 'Zie beneden'.

I soon detected that the primitive meaning of this curious name was 'look below'. At first indeed it struck me that it might refer to a footnote; but there was no footnote in the Dictionary, good or bad, from cover to cover, except B* on page 91, so I soon abandoned this idea as fanciful.

It was certainly hard to trace any connection between the advice (imperative mood, if you please) 'see below!' and what we usually understand by a 'handkerchief'.

The mystery seemed to clear a little when I remembered that a 'handkerchief' was a 'kerchief' for the hand; and that in the Tudor age 'kerchiefs' used to be worn round the neck. In fine old historical portraits that I had seen of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, their Majesties were always represented with elaborate cambric things about their shoulders. It was quite a feature of the period. Thus 'zie beneden' was no doubt the original word corresponding to 'kerchief'; and it would take its name from the fact that when the wearer in ancient times glanced down, he could easily see it on his chest. He would call it a 'look below' quite naturally. Then the name would remain unaltered, while the article would become first a kerchief for the hand, then finally a pocket-handkerchief.

As there were plenty of analogies in English for that sort of word formation, I became quite sure of my ground, and at the end of my list wrote with the pride of a philologist, '_7 ziebenedens_'.

A few other words I got with comparative ease, and jotted down in their places.

The more I looked at my finished document, the better I liked it.

This is how it ran:--

Lyst voor de Waschvrouw:

6 halsbanden, 4 paar handboeien. 3 nachtgewaden. 4 paar sokken? (Vilten binnenzolen). 7 Zie benedens.

Totaal = 32 Voorwerpen.

Ik bid de waschvrouw gauw de voorwerpen terug te zenden.

Aug. 5. J. O'Neill.

I was quite unprepared for the effect which my manuscript had on the landlady. When she came up presently for the wash-list, I said to her carelessly, as if I was in the habit of writing Dutch every day, "Voor de waschvrouw,--klaar".

She took the document in her hand and glanced at it; then suddenly sat down in my best arm-chair!

Now you must know that she is very respectful, always stands deferentially in my presence, and never dreams of taking liberties. Her conduct now was unaccountable. There she sat in the chair, rocking to and fro, her face hidden with both hands. Her agitation increased till finally she gave a kind of snort, for which she immediately apologised: "Neem me niet kwalijk, mijnheer! neem me niet kwalijk!"

Having regained a momentary composure, she dried her eyes with the corner of her apron and allowed her gaze to wander round the room. It fell upon my paper, and off she went again in a sort of suppressed shriek.

"O mijnheer! mijnheer!" she stammered convulsively. "Het is--voor--voor een hond!"

She ended with a hysterical sob as if she feared her emotions would choke her utterance.

All this naturally raised my suspicions as to the purity of my Dutch, though it seemed incredible that there could be much amiss with it. "Voor een hond" sounded like an expression of contempt, just as we dub ill-composed Latin, 'Dog-Latin', or pronounce poor food to be 'not fit for a dog.'

She surely couldn't imply that my Dutch would make a dog laugh?

It was clear now that she was highly amused at something I had written. At this I was just a little indignant, having spent all the morning hunting up equivalents in the dictionary and debating with myself about them.

To discourage her levity I answered quite coldly: "Wat is voor een hond? ik zie geen hond. Waar is hij?"

"O mijnheer", was the spasmotic reply, delivered in jerks, "halsband,--hals--band--is altijd voor--voor een hond! Ik lach me dood!"

I could not argue the point with her or convince her by reasoning that my choice must be correct.

So I just said "Hé!" and waited for her to recover. Presently she dried her eyes again, rose from the arm-chair, and tried to get away; but once more her eye fell on the fatal manuscript--this time on Handboeien--and again she dropped back with a smothered yell.

Then she apologized, then cried, then laughed, then finally gathered breath to say, "Voor een gevangene! Moet mijnheer naar de gevangenis?"

"Ik weet het niet," I protested in perplexity; "ik weet er niets van. Wat is gevangenis?"

She rose, and silently picking up my little dictionary, with an unsteady hand turned over to 'gevangenis.' She pointed to the English and I read 'prison'. Thus the 'handboeien' were 'handcuffs'!

I couldn't say she was mistaken. So I merely drew my pen through this item and said "Hè!" letting the matter rest.

Now she laughed at everything, at nachtgewaden, at voorwerpen, at my message to the washerwoman, even at sokken, though since I have never been able to discover why, except that it was the only proper word on the list.

But nothing could make her understand what I meant by Zie-benedens.

I couldn't explain to her all about Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary and the parallel historical development of cognate languages; I hadn't Dutch enough for it.

Pulling a handkerchief out of my pocket, and showing it to her, I said, "Dit--dit is een zie beneden!"

But at that she only laughed the more.

Then she chuckled and tittered and coughed and said "Oh! Oh!" and held her sides and stumbled all the way down those steep stairs to the imminent danger of her life. Half way down she had stopped for breath; distinctly I could hear her panting and muttering: "Oh mens! mens! Ik kan nie meer. Ik stik!" For the rest of the day bursts of jovial laughter kept rising from the kitchen, and an air of hilarity hung about the lower storey for a whole week.

Sir, said O' Neill, that is the deplorable result of bringing reason to bear on the material the dictionary gives. For here is another general principle I have discovered about languages: _The more arguments you find in favour of any given word the more certain it is that that word is totally wrong._