And that’s all there is to it! / That’s how it’s done! [Dutch phrase of the week]
You can use this phrase to conclude your explanation of how something is done. Usually it implies that it is not all that difficult.
Literally the expression “Dat is het hele eieren eten” translates to “That is the whole egg eating”. Weird people the Dutch, are they not?
Examples:
– “Je neemt de tram naar CS, de trein naar Schiphol, je checkt in bij balie 16 en dan direct door naar de paspoortcontrole; dat is het hele eieren eten!”
(“You take the tram to central station, then the train to Schiphol, you check in at row 16 and then straight to passport control; that’s all there is to it!”)
– “Luister mamma, je doet eerst Control-Alt-Delete, dan selecteer je ‘Taakbeheer’ en dan stop je gewoon het proces! Echt, dat is het hele eieren eten!”
(“Listen mom, you first do Control-Alt-Delete, then you select ‘Task manager’ and then you just stop the process! Really, that’s all there is to it!”)
Actually, I’ve only seen this phrase used to explain a particular, unsolved problem, not an explanation.
So it’s more like “there’s the rub”.
Hi Martin, I think that I know what you mean; one can also use this expression to say something like “and that/this is where the problem lies” or “and that/this is what it’s about” when reasoning. I would say that one can use the expression in this way in general and not only with respect to unsolved/unsolvable problems.
It might be interesting to note that the “Van Dale” dictionary for expressions ( http://www.vandale.nl ) describes this as former usage (and originally in its negation). But since we still hear this usage today, I have to disagree with them a bit on this occasion 🙂