Comments on: Ten slotte (a discovery)

By: tikitu

tikitu — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 12:59:39 +0000

Aha, that hadn’t occurred to me! … I’m not sure though, can you translate the ten slotte in the Mulisch quote as “in closing”? “After all” is much more natural in English in that context. Anyway, for me the neat thing is that both English and Dutch have the same sort of link between a list-enumeration expression and an argument-conclusing expression, even though the actual words being used don’t seem to be related.

By: ither

ither — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:34:24 +0000

Once more and I give up: slot is to be derived from sluiten.

By: ither

ither — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:32:14 +0000

Not so, I think. ‘tenslotte’ means ‘in closing’ whether a conclusion in time or logic. After all, slot

By: tikitu

tikitu — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 09:55:03 +0000

Never too late! Most likely, actually, I just copied it down wrong. (Someone else –maybe Jacob?– pointed out that written distinction, which is almost post-worthy in its own right.)

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 23:24:59 +0000

A bit late to comment, but it does not matter for the subject matter. I think (and woordenlijst.org suggests it’s right) that the “after all” sense is normally written as one word: tenslotte. Another Dutch word for it is “eigenlijk”. This is one of those things that few people actually know and therefore is very vulnerable to being lost or even worse, the wrong form being accepted after a while. So don’t bother remembering. The interesting bit is that Mulisch is quite an intelectual writer, making it unlikely he did not know this. He quite probably used it as a very subtle rhetorical tric that you painstakingly reconstructed analysed, making me (a native speaker) find out things about my own language!