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In the Well-Filled Breadbasket

Kleine Houtstraat 66, 2011 DP Haarlem

 

Once Dutch and English had a case system like German still has. Articles and adjectives had special endings. This shopkeeper tries to recreate this ancient, obsolete language. By doing so he tries to suggest that the shop has been here for centuries, I suppose.

It has all gone wrong.

For a start the word broodmand "breadbasket" is grammatically feminine, but den is masculine. Secondly, if you write den the adjective gevuld should have an -en as well, plus the noun gets an e at the end, this being a dative/locative case. So you would get: In den Gevulden Broodmande. For convenience sake I have written capitals where they are required.

As I said, broodmand is feminine, so this is what should have been the shop's name:

In der Gevulder Broodmand.

 

On offer are Kado - Fun - Bonbons.

Kado is an officially unaccepted modern (!) variant of cadeau "present".

I wonder what Fun is. Highly likely it is no fun to me at all, nor to you, if you have read this far.

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Uploaded on September 27, 2008
Taken on September 27, 2008