A small item in one of the papers I read every day: the TV show Holland's Got Talent doesn't get the high number of viewers they sort of expect. Why? Because of its name, and strangely not because of the poor quality of the show. I would suspect the latter to be the case, but the paper insisted it is the name.
What's wrong with it? Well... Internationally Holland is a name for my country recognized probably far more widely than the official name, the Netherlands. The reason for that is that we have had a long and successful maritime history in this country, and those ships sailed from Holland. Holland is just a part of this country, and it consists of just two of the twelve provinces. Even though most of them will state, when asked in English, that they are indeed "from Holland", a lot of people from outside these two provinces (North and South Holland) feel offended when a TV show is called Holland's Got Talent, and so they boycott it.
I myself was born and raised in North Holland, but I usually choose to say I'm from the Netherlands. I don't have a problem with the word Holland per se, but I do have a problem with one of the main uses of the word in my own language. When you go to a record store -sadly there aren't a great many around anymore- and you're looking for Dutch music, do try and avoid any section with the header 'Hollands'. Good music in my language can only be found under the header 'Nederpop'.
What's wrong with music that's billed 'Hollands'? Why, everything! It's one of the most popular genres in my country, but you must have an IQ lower than 65 to appreciate it. The lyrics are too simple, often of a poor grammatical standard, the singers can't sing, the music sounds cheap, ... Still, it doesn't require too much of a brain to understand it, so it appeals to people.
It isn't just music. Every form of low culture in my country is billed as 'Hollands', and people are proud of it too. If ever I was wondering why this country produces such idiots as Geert Wilders with their unprovoked crusades against anything alien, now I know.
The Holland v Netherlands discussion is also a topical issue where my language itself is concerned. I have made the point before that the Dutch language is an artificial language. It was constructed from dialects spoken in the Holland and Brabant regions. Professors introduced all sorts of difficult grammar rules to make it even more difficult and to create a distance between the new language and the dialects it evolved from.
Dialects spoken in other parts of the Netherlands were neglected in the creation of the Dutch language, and so with the exception of the provinces of Flevoland and Utrecht, in each of the neglected parts there are movements to get the regional dialects recognized as official languages. Frisian, spoken in the North, is such a world away from Dutch, that it already has that status. Several dialects spoken throughout the east also have the status of language, under the unified banner of Lower Saxon. In the southeast the province of Limburg are bitterly struggling to get their dialects recognized as one single language, and in the southwest there's the province of Zealand that would like their dialect to become an official language.
Still, the whole Holland v Netherlands thing can be fun. I once convinced an American that Holland and the Netherlands are actually two completely different countries, that are at war with one another. The word Holland also comes in handy when traveling in America. In all the hotels I stayed in, many Americans asked me where I was from, and when I said I was from Holland their faces invariably lit up, only to look disappointed three seconds later, when I added: Michigan. I have such a convincing American accent, that it was sometimes hard for me to convince people I really was from that European country, and not from the town in Michigan, but it usually led to fun conversations.
Anyways, any excuse to get the show canceled will do it for me.
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You are Sandusky, OH
Loser! You are boring, have no sense of adventure, no sense of humor, you have no friends, in fact you're no good to this world. You are definitely Sandusky, OH!
Famous Sandusky, Ohio, residents: probably a few hockey players, but no one worth a second glance
* Soraya
