Pardon My Dutch?

I have no idea whatsoever how to cuss in Dutch, but apparently Dutch people do.

And it doesn’t sit well with some of them.

Yes, despite the extreme moral turpitude into which the Netherlands as a whole has descended, there are still folks over there who are swimming against the Eurotide.

Take, for example, the folks of the village Staphorst.

EXCERPTS:

The name of the Lord may no longer be taken in vain in the Dutch village of Staphorst.

Staphorst, in the so-called Dutch "bible belt" of eastern towns where religion holds sway, approved a ban on swearing by 13-4 council votes

Now, you may be wondering how such a village is even allowed to pass a law like that. Shouldn’t the central Dutch government–if not the central Eurogovernment–have made profaning the name of God a constitutional right?

Indeed it has, and so there are "enforcement issues" with the Staphorst law. Still, it’s nice to know that there are some over yonder who still rage against the dying of the light.

GET THE STORY.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

4 thoughts on “Pardon My Dutch?”

  1. Go Staphorst! And I pray they don’t have the equivalent of the ACLU or activist judges around those parts.

  2. Interesting.
    How do they reckon on enforcing this ?
    I’m all for outlawing foul language, can’t stand it…I’m a fairly ignorant and uneducated person, but even I don’t need to thread expletives through a sentence to get my point across…I think it’s an obnoxious antisocial habit…just like I don’t want to be breathe in the harmful effects of others cigarrette smoke, I don’t want my sensibilities offended by the lack of socially acceptable public behaviour.
    God Bless.

  3. I wonder whether Dutch vulgarity parallels French, ie, by using many Catholic terms as expletives (eg, for our “damn” the French would say “sacrament”). If so, then common vulgarity might, in fact, be more akin (as in similar, not Jimmy) to blasphemy.

  4. This aside is a Dutchism that I know of.
    When I was a protestant, and did some missionary work in Europe, there was a good friend of mine that worked at our Dutch office.
    He related that when he moved to the Netherlands, he would introduce himself as Bill and ALWAYS got chuckles, sniggers and out and out laughter. Needless to say, Bill grew more and more perplexed until one day, someone graciously mentioned that his name in English is the Dutch name for the part of your body that you sit on… the other name in English for donkey.
    After blushing, from that moment on he introduced himself to people as William.
    I know of no law that relates to this, though 🙂

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