THE DUSTY SURPLUS

In a previous post I had translated the Dutch word for vacuum cleaner as a stuff sucker. Which is not entirely correct, though it could be seen as such. As a Dutch speaker, I tend to have fun with Dutch locutions.
It's the closest I come to 'fleshly community'.
A harmless vice.
Sin.

Quote: "Every weekend, while I am at work, my apartment mate goes through the apartment with brush and pan, wiping cloth, and vacuum cleaner ("stuff sucker", as the Dutch would have it; stofzuiger)."
End cite.

My apartment mate is a long-suffering woman.
Who lives in a clean and dust-free room.
With her non-dusty teddy bear.
The chaperone.
FYI.


A correspondent wrote:
Stof in Dutch is two words, one going with German Staub (as in Staubsauger) = dust, and one going with German stopfen = stuff, cram and French étoffe (-> German Stoff) = fabric, material, originally something like "providing".
(For the record, though, I still don't speak Dutch, unfortunately.)

Me:
That is correct. But a happy fluke. 😉
My mother was once confused by an advertisement for 'stof'. Her Dutch wasn't 100%.

He responded:
Ha. Is stof used for "dope", too? Stoff in German is.

Me:
Not to the best of my knowledge. Yet. The Dutch have borrowed 'wiet' and 'sjit' for dope, and, baffelingly, refer to getting high as 'een blowtje maken'.
Another use of 'stof' is the equivalent of 'corporeal' or 'physical'. Het stoffelijke overschot = the physical remains (the "excess" of a deceased person).

End cites.

And there you have the title of this post.


For the literally bent (of which I am one) , the Dutch language, among several others, is a gold mine.

I thank fate daily that I was born a Dutch speaker.
Among several other things.




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