Re: Oooooo! I hates that varmint! Attn: Dutch speakers

On 4 Sep 02, at 13:46, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Eamon Graham <robertg@...>:
>
> > Looking from the other side of the spectrum (the French side) I can
> > say Belgium occupies an interesting spot in linguistic space.  I've
> > been to Bruxelles twice and I'm probably going back at the end of
> > this month.  I'm still tripped up everytime I go to a store or Quick
> > and they say "s'il vous plaît" when giving me my food or whatever.
>
> Influence from Dutch (here Flemish) which
> says "alsjeblieft/altublieft": "please" for "here you are".
>
> Funny enough, I found the very same use in Slovak! "Prosím"
> means "please", "you're welcome", and "here you are". I wonder what other
> languages have the same use...
German, with "bitte". "Können Sie bitte ..." = "Could you please ..." /
"Danke!" "Oh, bitte." = "Thanks!" "Oh, you're welcome." / "Hier, bitte"
= "Here you are".

Greek shares "parakalw" for "please" and "you're welcome" but uses
"oriste" (literally, "arrange! determine!") for "here you are" (and a
dozen other uses including "come in", "hello" [on answering the
telephone], and "help yourself [to the food]", according to my
dictionary).

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>