‘Bigger as’
From now on you can say, for example, that ‘Jan is bigger than Marc’, while in the past it always had to be ‘bigger than’. “In practice, both variants have been around for a very long time,” said linguist Timothy Colleman (UGent) in New Facts on Radio 1. “From a linguistic point of view, you cannot say that one is better than the other.”
‘He never has no money’
Another rule that is being adjusted: the double negation. For example, a sentence like “He never has no money” used to be considered wrong because “never” and “no” would give you a double negation. From now on, both ‘He never has money’ and ‘He never has no money’ are correct in spoken language according to the ANS.
‘A very big nose’
The ANS has also reconsidered the adverb. You can now also say that someone has a ‘very big nose’ instead of a ‘very big nose’. “The traditional grammatical rule says you should never bend adverbs,” says Colleman. “But in practice you have heard ‘a very big nose’ for centuries. There is nothing wrong with that. ” From now on you may bend some adverbs, but this does not apply to all adverbs. ‘A very nice man’ instead of ‘a very nice man’ still remains wrong.
‘I gave them a book’
The distinction between ‘them’ and ‘their’ is also becoming blurred in the new version of the ANS. In the past, only a sentence like ‘I gave them a book’ was correct, but from now on you can also say ‘I gave them a book’. “In the spoken language, hardly anyone has adhered to that rule. Then the rules could certainly be a bit more flexible, ”says Colleman.
Next year, the ANS will make some more changes. You can find all the rules on the website of the Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst.
▶ Some old grammar rules will be overhauled
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