Dutch “ten slotte” has a funny double usage that has always given me trouble, but this morning I cracked it. It’s first use is for enumerating options: “ten eerste… ten tweede… ten slotte” (firstly, secondly, and finally). But there’s this other use, for example in the following exchange from De ontdekking van de hemel:

Onno sprak zijn minachting uit voor leeghoofden die zonnebaadden […] maar Max [(een sterrenkundige)] zei dat dat tot zijn vak behoorde: de zon was ten slotte een ster. [My italics]

(Roughly: Onno mentioned his dislike of bubbleheads who sunbathe, but Max (an astronomer) said that this fitted his profession: the sun was after all a star.)

You see? After all, in the above rhetorical sense (“no matter what you say”? “after all your arguments have come and gone”? or more likely “after all is said and done”) uses the same form as finally in the enumeration. And once you see it, you realise the same thing is going on, in a more subtle fashion, in English. Because what’s “finally” but “after all”, after all?

If I may pontificate (and just you try to stop me!), this is why learning languages is so wonderfully rewarding. You get a vision of your own language that you would never find any other way.

(And you get to read exchanges like this one, again from Mulisch, which looks set to become my favourite book of the month: “–Nu weet ik het zeker, dat jij krankzinnig bent. –In orde. Laten wij eens en voor altijd de rollen verdelen: ik ben gek en jij bent dom. –Afgesproken!” Which is translatable, but you’d have to lose the monosyllabic punchy poetry of “Ik ben gek en jij bent dom”, so I won’t spoil it by trying.)