Squirting and Swallowing

verb: to take drugs

It is a strange fact of life that sometimes stereotypes are in fact opposite. This post concerns the usage of drugs in the Netherlands. The Netherlands makes a distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs. Cannabis, a "soft" drug, is generally allowed in the Netherlands, yet usage is considerably lower than many countries who still crimminalise it, as seen by this graph. And I don't think this takes into consideration the massive amounts of drug tourism that Holland also generates.

People often explain this curious statist by saying that people like doing things that aren't allowed, but this seems like a pretty weak explanation to me. My hypothesis is related to the Dutch language. "Spuiten en Slikken" is a euphamism primarily for taking drugs. In fact, there is even a popular TV show which addresses drug and(/or) sex-related activities. I once saw a young female tv host try acid and go to a disco. Now that is reporting!


Quite literally, it can be translated as "squirting and swallowing", which suddenly makes taking drugs seem a little less attractive. Or at least, it is something you would put some more thought into doing. Because, even in Dutch, judging by a google image search I just made, there is a large connotation with some aspects of sexual intercourse you hope won't be on the video that God shows you at the pearly gates.

See, when drugs are illegal and most people seem to agree that there is relatively little harm to come from them, people might be quicker to go ahead and use them in spite of the legal risk. In Holland there is a much more open dialogue, and people can make a more informed decision as to whether they want to "squirt and swallow". So I think we could introduce this eupemism into the English language, and see if this affects the drug-use statitics. It could do no harm, except I suppose, to people who like freaky sex but are staunchly anti-drug. But those people can go screw themselves, which I am sure they will.

Example Sentence:

"Every year, hundreds of thousands of drug tourists come to Amsterdam for some squirting and swallowing which their home governments would not approve of."


Bonus: Another popular host of the show Spuiten en Slikken, Nicollete, famously posed for playboy last year to "report" on the experience. This has no real relevance to this post, but is still awesome.

Zuh

a suffix after a regular verb, to encourage the person to perform the action to their absolute best


Okay, the above definition is a little messy. I think it may be useful to give the most common example.
When I first began working for a temping agency in Holland, I got my first assignment. The cute girl at the counter (with whom I shared a birthday with) was extremely friendly and helpful, and I thanked her for the job which I badly needed. As I began walking away, she called out "Werk Ze!".

I was confused. Did she just call out to me "work it!", like horny females call out at strip clubs on ladies' night? I turned around, slightly confused but complimented. But she just said "werk ze" again, leaving me leaving confused.

Over the next few weeks of work, I kept hearing the phrase "werk ze", and it became obvious that it wasn't some kind of wolf whistle. I mean, I know I don't warrant that much femular attention, and it became a little unnerving when old ladies, and men called it out.

It turns out this is a phrase that means "Do your best" or "Keep up the good work" or "Work hard" (or more accurately, in a freer transaltion: "Don't work too hard"). It is such a simple, efficient phrase, and what I love about it the most is that strangers often say this to each other. I especially heard this when I was working the late shift, and the customer felt sympathy for the crappy work I was doing. It is a simple and nice gesture, one that actually helps make you feel better despite the crappy work. I think the English language could use such a friendly phrase, because it sounds demeaning telling a stranger to "work hard".

Although work-zuh is really the only common use for zuh, I learnt that it is possible to say it with other verbs. The main other occasion that I am aware of is when serving food to customers. "Eat-zuh" can be said instead of the regular "eet smakelijk", although I found it is less polite and wouldn't say it to old people. Maybe I am ageist. Perhaps the nuance is when someone is about to get stuck into a large portion, and they would need to eat to their utmost ability to finish it.

After the revelation of the suffix "zuh", I began to use this in my everyday English conversations to ridiculous effect.

• Instead of 'goodnight' I would say 'sleep-zuh'
• Instead of 'study hard' it would be 'study-zuh'
• When someone was going to the supermarket, I'd tell them 'shop-zuh'
• If someone was about to go out to a party, it'd be 'drink-zuh'

I am sure you could come up with some much more inappropriate ones like I have. Basically, it is a way to tell someone to succeed at, and enjoy whatever they might be doing. And this can never be a bad thing.

Example Sentences
Let's make a quick quiz to see if you can make your own "zuh" words from these pictures. Choose from the multi-choice options. (Note: there are probably no wrong answers.)

A) Act-zuh
B) Botox-zuh
C) Adopt-zuh

A) Drill-zuh
B) Spill-zuh
C) Clean-zuh
A) Swing-zuh
B) Drill zuh
C) Spill-zuh
D) Apologise-zuh

Nutless

Adjective: "useless", something without any forseeable purpose

If a Dutch person is performing a task that has no possible benefits, that task is often called "nutteloos". However, from my English-speaking background, whenever I hear this word, it sounds much more descriptive, as it suggests neutering and eunuchs. This is never a nice thing to think about (or FYI, to google search... this will take a few weeks to get out of my mind...)

Anyway. So I think we can all agree that, not having any balls renders a male useless for some specific tasks. However, we can extend this expression to actions too, to really drive home the pointlessness of it. For example, it may be nutless to get a brazillian if you are a eunuch.

I also like the structural parallels with the well-known expression "as useful as a spare prick at a wedding", for which the Gazelle equivalent would be: "as useful as an empty nut-sack". I like it. It is an effective, poignant analogy that easily crosses over into the English domain without explanation.

It can also be said that something 'has no nut'. [Het heeft geen nut], which means the same thing as nutless.

Antonym: When something is, on the contrary, useful, Dutch people call it "nuttig". I like to translate this to"Nutty", which always brings a smile to my face as I recall this scene from Austin Powers.

Example sentences:
"Abstinence is nutless"
"I don't want to clean my room, it has no nut. It will just get dirty again"


Bonus:
Seeing Scrat from the Ice Age trilogy made me want to see more of him. Maybe you do too. Here is a glorious short film about Scrat from Pixar's Ice Age. You might even say this his whole life is nutless.

Tractoring

Verb: To shout (someone), to treat (someone) to

The dutch word "trakteren" has the above meaning, which again brings up the issue of vague, waffly English definitions where Dutch has a clear word for it. "Shouting" by itself has another more dominant meaning, and treating someone sounds more like when the parents of your best friend buys you an icecream after you went and played at the park. Treating someone to a beer, it's a little belittling, or maybe illegal. Just ask Michael Jack... Oh wait, he's dead. What have we learnt?

So next time, "tractor" someone, please.

Tractoring has a slightly wider definition in Holland. See, when they have a birthday, they actually do things for other people. I know, it's as if they don't even want to be a needy, attention-seeking, greedy, spoilt little bitch. Weird. When children have birthdays, they are almost obligated to buy all their classmates a small gift, and adults usually have some kind of party where guests aren't even supposed to bring their own alcohol. I know, it doesn't make any sense. For this reason, the MTV show "Dutch Sweet 16" is the lamest show ever.

Last year for my birthday, I had to cook for all my extended family, and several times during the evening they asked me to fetch the next round of drinks. I was tractoring around all day, and I didn't get even one gift. But on the bright side, we don't have to bring gifts or booze to birthday parties, so it all works out in the end. Expending a lot of energy once a year for a birthday is much better than doing it all year round. It is like immunising yourself against brithday parties. The Dutch are onto something here.


Example Sentences:

"If you're tractoring someone to a hay-ride, chances are, you're a redneck"

Dushi

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Oron-yeh

Adjective: The colour orange

I will start with quoting comedian Demetri Martin:

"I think they named oranges before they named carrots. What are these? ... Oranges. What about these? (Oh shit)... Long Pointies? ..."

Left behind is the colour orange, which, by judging from what I see around me, is probably the most important colour in the world. It surely deserves its own name. So, my solution is to import the Dutch word "oranje" into the English lexicon. Because, I mean, Holland pretty much owns the colour. Besides, calling an entire colour (and even a secondary colour at that) after something from the real world is pretty stupid. We can't degenerate the colour to the same level as the made-up "salmon".

It is weird that Holland has an entire colour that we call our own. I mean, the Dutch basically own everything that has a visible spectrum at a wavelength of about 585–620 nm, and a hue of 30° in HSV colour space. To my knowldge, there is no other country that has this phenomenom. Sure, every country has its national colours, but they have to share it with other countries (suckers). However, to my knowledge, the colours purple and pink are still available. So, if some country that noone really cares about, say, Uruguay, just decided to clothe all their athletes in baby pink, that would be a really great way to gain recognition in the world.

Of course, the spelling of oranje would have to change, otherwise people would say "oran-gee", which would be retarded. (I had friends who said they enjoyed drinking "Onan-gee-boom". I had to think really hard about it before I realised what he meant.)

There is a logical reason why oron-yeh has become the symbolic colour of Holland. It has something to do with kicking Spain's ass a few hundred years ago. [Foreshadow] In fact, Orange would probably still be on our national flag were it not for one small detail. From Wikipedia:

"The first stadtholder of the Dutch Republic was William I of Orange, who joined with Dutch nationalists and led the struggle for independence from Spain. Partly out of respect for him, the first flag adopted by the Dutch was a horizontal tricolour of orange, white, and blue. It became known as the Prinsenvlag ("Prince's flag") and was based on the livery of William of Orange. The orange dye was particularly unstable and tended to turn red after a while, so in the mid-17th century, red was made the official colour."

I think with all the other countries who have tried to copy the Dutch flag, and now that we have colourfast oron-yeh dies, we could well revert back to the original flag. Not that it is neccessary, as oron-yeh is already our own colour. In summation, a colour, so important and with such a history, should not continually be referred to by simply the name of a fruit.


Example Sentence:

"Let's paint the world oron-yeh tonight!"

Way-kah

Noun: The Football World Cup

Way-kah is the Dutch pronounciation of WK, which stands for Wereld Kampionschap (World champoinship). In Dutch it would sound very strange to say "cup", as this usually refers to single portions of salad dressing, or bra sizes. Being a football country, there is never any doubt as to which sport this Way-kah concerns. This is ingrained into Dutch youth, no matter where in the world they are raised. The contraction is necessary because it reduces the amount of syllables from six, to just two. And considering how often the Dutch talk about the World Cup, this contraction probably adds a few percentage points to the GDP.

In English, "World Cup", contains only two syllables, so a contraction is hardly necessary, not to mention that the contraction would then be "WC" which has four syllables and is the place where you defecate. However, other than in England, saying "the World Cup" wouldn't always refer to football (or the blasphemous word "soccer"... urgh.) This could refer to hundreds of different sports, all trying to cash in on the World Cup name. Just take a look at this list. Some of these sports are even made-up sports. I mean, what the hell is "bandying"? And no, I will not give "bandying" the dignity to take 3 seconds out of my life to wikipedia it. It's the principle of the matter. Because as much as I love a few other sports, only football has the potential to be a true world-sport. Even the bigger sports such as baseball, rugby and basketball have a very limited amount of countries who even stand a chance.

Therefore, a single word to refer to the football world cup is probably a good idea. Of course, this would only be temporary, until there is no doubt in any English-speaking country that there is only one World Cup, and that is for football. Because you know it is coming. So, in times of doubt, refer to it in its Dutch. The way-kah. It will be especially relevant if we are the winners this year.

Example Sentence: "The Brazilians had a big wah at the way-kah."

Bonus: Way-kah might be even easier to remember thanks to Shakira's annoying Waka-Waka song. In her wierd Cher-like voice, she almost even pronounces "Waka" similar to "way-kah".


(Although annoying as this Shakira song is, it is a thousand times better than the annoying official FIFA song, whose lyrics are "wooo-yo-oh-ye-oh" and "Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag Wave your flag" Seriouslt, these lyrics are as annoying, repetitive and ADD as the goddamn vuvuzela. Thank you Africa.)

Bonus number two:
Here are some images of the way-kah crazyness in Holland right now. There is no doubt here as to which sport the WK belongs to. I mean it is "the" World Cup, not "a" World Cup.
You would think that this is a shop that sells orange things. No, this is a bank.
Paint it Orange.


Part of the FIFA goal this Way-kah, as shown before the anthems, is the campaign "Say no to Racism"... Unless it is against the Japanese. (Or, say "yes to Nationalizm!")

You would think that these are just some drunken fans, but they are in fact our Prime Minister and his husband.

And here is another photo of our Prime Minister and his husband. Hup Holland!