John O'Mill
Johan van der Meulen (11 January 1915,
Breda - 13 September 2005, Breda), better known by his pseudonym '''John O'Mill''' (a jocular translation of his given name, as if
O' stands for "of the"), was a Dutch author mostly known for his wordplay and
limericks, and for using a
macaronic combination of Dutch and English words and sentence structures he called "Double Dutch" (itself a pun on
various meanings of this phrase). Double Dutch appears English, but it cannot be fully understood without knowledge of Dutch, because it is based on the literal translation of
Dutch idioms into English and the similarity in sound of certain words and expressions. O'Mill, who was until 1975 a teacher of English at the public high school "Rijks-HBS" at
Breda (
North Brabant), was inspired by the clumsy English used by his students.
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