There's an old Dutch expression, voor Pampus liggen, which literally translates as "to lie before Pampus." Today the phrase means passed out drunk or in a food coma as after Thanksgiving. But there's more to the story than that; I first heard it from a Dutchman on a sailboat in sight of the island of Pampus in the Zuiderzee -- that big brackish interior of the Netherlands.
In the olden days -- before the dikes were built and Amsterdam was still a major seaport -- heavily laden ships returning from the Far East used to lie anchored a few scant miles from Amsterdam waiting -- sometimes for days --for favorable tide conditions to allow them to pass over an enormous submerged sandbar (actually a submerged silt channel) which blocked easy access to the port. There was no proper island then (that came later) and Pampus referred to the murky submerged shoal.
Someone devised a plan to ease the boredom and impatience of the randy sailors. Smaller craft, bearing vices: food, liquor, and women, plied the waiting ships like a captive audience. The sailors were easy marks. There must have been some commercial collusion going on for who would pay a seamen his wages before disembarking the ship? Anyway, the phrase came from the condition many a sailor found himself in after coming so close to and yet so far way from home.
36 comments:
Such things are common throughout history.
Read about the deal the original A&P had with railroads like the UP and SP.
That sounds coolie, edutcher. I'll look into it.
They "paid the seaman" or semen. This practice was common w/ Navy Ships during WW2. The captain liked for their guys to blow a load on the ship before going into town. Kept them a little less wild @ the outset of shore leave.
I'm wondering how long you had to wait for the smaller vice craft before you could turn homo and it didn't count.
Interesting language - before Pampus lying, or to be a bit less ambiguous in English, before Pampus reclining.
Wouldn't want to tell an untruth in front of anyone so Pampus.
Could this story be related to the never-solved mystery of Steve Miller's The Joker"?
Ask the gangster of love...
Actually the song you are thinking of is Van Lingle Mungo.
There was much fun before efficiency come in --
Time to sweat out malaria from the Java runnin,'
Time to watch the tide lift us up over the bar,
Old Amsterdam swelling 'neath the evening star.
Hey, I plead innocent about that big empty space under my pome. It was all those ol' dutch bums pampus liggen me.
Old Amsterdam swelling 'neath the evening star.
Your poesy needs a sound track for deep contemplation, ricpic; link
Ah, Vincent.
I like the tag.
Lem click on that link to youtube.
You would appreciate it.
The returning VOC ships were usually loaded to the max, and smaller ships would meet them at Pampus to unload some of the cargo. At some point, either the tide, or the lighter load would lift the ship enough so that it could make it to harbor.
Q: "Waar is Garage?"
A: "Garage heeft te veel bier gezopen, en ligt voor Pampus."
The returning VOC ships were usually loaded to the max, and smaller ships would meet them at Pampus to unload some of the cargo. At some point, either the tide, or the lighter load would lift the ship enough so that it could make it to harbor.
Q: "Waar is Meade?"
A: "Meade heeft te veel bier gezopen, en ligt voor Pampus."
The returning VOC ships were usually loaded to the max, and smaller ships would meet them at Pampus to unload some of the cargo. At some point, either the tide, or the lighter load would lift the ship enough so that it could make it to harbor.
Q: "Waar is Garage?"
A: "Garage heeft te veel bier gezopen, en ligt voor Pampus.
Lem click on that link to youtube.
I did. that was very good. some of those names are familiar.
Thank you for explaining this. I remember this phrase from some old Dutch friends, and I had a vague idea about its origin, but it was just one of those phrases with a nautical reference about being drunk that I took to be something like "three sheets to the wind," and I left it at that.
When I was in college, I discovered the European ability to hold liquor. I was shit-faced, when my German and Dutch companions had just got the evening going with an equal amount of spiritous input. They generally didn't touch the beer, which by German and Dutch standards is so foul as to be undrinkable. Bols oude jenever, OTOH, bears a close resemblance to paint remover, and seems to be the only drink worthy to lay the Dutch before Pampus.
The Germans, meanwhile, were making for the Gewürtztraminer and vodka.
I think the Dutch language is especially weird.
@Lipperman: Wat is nieuw bij oud huis?
Well actually they were born that way.
Don't be a bigot.
In the olden days they didn't gave to build dykes?
I meant the burly ones, Ritmo. The ones that made Rotterdam what it is today.
April: Dutch isn't weird at all.
Nee, de Nederlandse taal is niet raar helemaal.
It's only the spelling that looks formidable. If you go to Holland (or Flanders, which these days is in 2 or 3 countries), and if you know some German, you can pick up a fair bit of the language very quickly. It's a lot like English that's been pickled in German with some odd vowels and a gutteral sound or two thrown in the barrel.
It also helps everyone speaks English. Holland is the only European country I feel totally comfortable in with my primitive command of other European languages. You find yourself sliding pretty comfortably between Dutch and English.
I like this little video of a Brazilian woman, Regina Albanez, who lives and works in Holland, explaining several antique string instruments in Dutch. If you listen to it for a minute, especially knowing a little German, you'll see what I mean. She's a guitar player, and it shows at the end.
The Dutch invented dykes and also the pumping methods that go with it.
BTW, I'm confused. The Dutch spelling is "dyke" but I deliberately used "dike" to avoid the connotation. Does English use "dyke" in the sense of an impenetrable barrier?
El Pollo: Both spellings are used in English, with the British preferring "dyke," which is very understandable.
BTW, as a little palate cleanser, here is that Brazilian/Dutch woman again, but playing the well-known "Canarios" by Sanz. Every guitar student learns this. She's doing it on a copy of an instrument from Sanz' day (late 1600's)--5 courses, 10 strings.
Here's an old Althouse link where you can pick up a couple dirty words in Dutch if you watch the subtitles: link.
Thanks for those videos, Tim. You've linked them before, somewhere.
TT Burnett wrote: Bols oude jenever
Bols old gin. Their "Jenever" is cognate with our "juniper" which tells you where the stuff comes from. Somewhere along the line, somebody must have shorted "jenever" to "jen" and then to just gin. I blame the Brits. They're the ones who came up with "Dutch" when they meant "Deutsch."
I like the way this blog gives me an opportunity to talk dirty while making it sound educational.
At Troop's I could just talk dirty.
But I'm usually too squeamish to. Those guys could make sailors blush.
I think Dutch sounds weird to anyone that's because of how close it is to English.
Dutch is also to me the sexiest language. There is nothing hotter than a woman speaking Dutch. But that's only my own personal association based on youthful romance.
“House, wife, and milk, makes good cheese.”
Makes good English and makes good Freise.
All the words in quotes are the same in English and Friesian, a dialect of Dutch from Freisland.
Hab a kuppa koppee. Can you guess what that phrase means?
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