Ug_Caveman wrote:Just curious, has anyone here had experience with Ter Zake by L. Bekkers and S. Mennen (published by Intertaal)?
I haven't, but it's worth saying something about 'Ter zake'. In the 1995 Woordenlijst Nederlandse taal (aka Het Groene Boekje) it was spelled as one word. It has been at other times as well, but it is now considered as always two words, in fact a 'word group'. Nevertheless loads of people write it as one single word.
Its usual meanings are : 'to the point or matter' (at hand) and 'to business'. Adding 'van' to the end 'ter zake van' means 'with regard to' or 'regarding' in a formal style. Something like:
Hij had een telefonisch bericht achtergelaten ter zake van het ondertekenen van het contract. Or more informally 'over het ondertekenen van het contract. Very commonly people tend to put this acronym or initialism: mbt (met betrekking tot = regarding/concerning/with reference to):
Was er een telefonisch bericht achtergelaten mbt het ondertekenen van het contract?.
There are loads of these used officially and unofficially: maw = met andere woorden, tbv = ter beschikking van, dwz = dat wil zeggen, iig = in ieder geval... etc.