On the meaning of Joost
From an internal mailing list (I’m sure this doesn’t break my NDA):
“ALLEEN JOOST ZAL HET WETEN…………. ”
which is a Dutch proverb, roughly translatable as “the devil may know”, and as such means “I have no idea”
Joost is an old word for the devil :) . Potentially it came from the Javanese ‘joos’ which was the name for a chinese god.
Of course this is not the real reason; as far as I’m concerned, the main appeal of the Joost name is that it doesn’t have strong ties to anything in particular… yet.
In Italian Joost doesn’t mean anything at all, of course; but in my home town dialect it works a lot better: it means “right”.
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5 Responses to “On the meaning of Joost”
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Some however say Joost mag het weten
f.i. website joostmaghetweten.nl for
only Joost shall know [ of it ]
Potentially the Dutch on Java heared the Indonesian joos as joosje and joost.
Source dict. WNT , is short for dejos,
derived from the Portugese deus “god”.
Google
Yahoo!
Kelkoo
Someone like it double!
Yes, it’ not the ultimate evidence, I know, but I don’t think this is a coincidence.
Paul,
Indonesia sounds more plausible than China, granted. But beyond that, Joost zal het weten :-)
Ah, but those are two-syllable names, wherease Joost is just one strong and proud syllable! :D
Hi Andrea,
May I pls score an invitation/token?
My e-dress = amarsan@gmail.com
Thanx for your time – much appreciated.
Best regards,
Alex