Re: German Spelling Reform (fwd)

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> Van: Irina Rempt-Drijfhout <ira@...>
> It's not as if the -n- is pronounced, either. This will probably make
> for a lot of spelling pronunciation, complete with pedants who insist
> that "you have to pronounce it, because it's written!" (I was raised
> by one, who couldn't believe that her spoken Dutch was, well, spoken
> Dutch even if she heard it on tape).
>
>    Irina
That's my experience too. People think they say what they write, especially
in Holland. The final -n in verbs (like in "werken", "lopen") and in plural
forms of nouns (like in 'dingen") is never pronounced in Dutch. Stil
lnearly everybody thinks it is. Once I worked at Air Holland. When
boarding, the stewardesses pronounced Dutch too well, pronouncing the
/n/'s. I told them they didn't have too, because it is not pronounced. They
refused to believe and we had a big argument!