It is good Dutch to say: ik zag dien braven man gisteren, I saw that honest man yesterday; but it is very bad Dutch,—whatever custom may have introduced in some places; to say—dien braven man heeft het gezegd.
Take some gems at random.
N.B. Prepositions are that part of speech, which are so called because they are, commonly, put before the words, which are subsequent to them, as onder and ondanks.
N.B. Most Adverbs may be distinguished from adjectives by this rule: If a substantive is added after them, they will make nonsense; whereas, being joined to an Adjective or a Verb, they will make good sense.
“What I admire most,” said van Dam handing back The Work to O’Neill, “is the elasticity of the rules. He says, for instance, that you can render I know by ik weet, and on the whole he is inclined to recommend that way of it. But he never commits himself.
“It must be also admitted that there are other authors of good standing who employ the Subjunctive form where we might expect the Indicative and who say IK WETE, I know.”
IK GRAUW, IK KEF, EN IK KWEEL.
That’s one of his rules!
As a matter of fact there is no finality about anything in these pages. O’Neill, you were in training for a poet when you took up this book. I confess I should have liked to hear you going over your fifteen classes of irregular verbs, on the model (say) of ik grauw, ik kef en ik kweel, or even of ik krijsch, ik piep en ik lieg.