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Dear authors,
It's great when you decide to have or refer to Dutch characters or use Dutch settings in your novels. However, it would be nice if you did some research in Dutch names to avoid common but oh so annoying mistakes.
In a last name "van" usually doesn't begin with a capital V in Dutch, "van der" is usually two separate words, "von" is German, and surname prefixes such as "van", "van der" or "van de" are usually separate from the rest of the surname. E.g. my last name is "van Willigenburg", not "Van Willigenburg", or "Vanwilligenburg". If you use a random surname please make sure that it's written correctly: it isn't Pardekoper (in Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America), but either Paardekoper or Paardekooper (the latter one being old fashioned).
If you refer to place names make sure you write them correctly. And if you make up a place name please make sure it makes sense: Bleumenschoten (in Laurie R. King's The King of the Hive) doesn't make sense, "bleumen" isn't anything, I suspect it should have been "bloemen" (flowers), although "bloem" in combination with "schoten" is more natural than "bloemenschoten".
I find these types of mistakes and faults very distracting when reading, especially it's repeated throughout the novel.
Thank you very much.
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