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| Illustration taken from Wikimedia |
Combined words, a very interesting topic. Unlike in English, the Dutch language requires that combined words are written as one word. It is a very common mistake, also amongst native speakers. It occurs so frequently that in 2004, people have built a website that collects examples of this kind of mistakes.
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| Illustration taken from SOS |
A good example is a website that promotes perfumes. You can choose between "scents for ladies" and "scents for gentlemen". In Dutch, this should be: "damesgeuren" and "herengeuren", both written as one word as it is a combination of the words "ladies" and "scents". Unfortunately, the website has put a separation between both parts of the combined word, not realising that "dames geuren" can be read as if 'geuren' is a verb, changing the meaning to "ladies smell (bad)" and "gentlemen smell (bad)".
Not really the image that you would expect from perfumesellers, this smells...
