Well, I have fairly little to report in the personal field, but the Word of the Day provided an interesting dilemma today. I've nominated four, for the following reasons:
- Brandveiligheidseisen: One of the main reasons for the Word of the Day is that concepts that before were not really that important, became commonplace discussion material due to media influence, or major issues in society, in any case, the concept is brought up so often that it becomes a word. This goes for 'brandsveiligheidseisen'. It means demands for fire hazard safety, and the reason it's been such a popular topic in the media is that some two years ago a bar in Volendam burnt down to the ground while filled with young people celebrating New Year, killing a lot of them and maiming several others. Of course you then get the usual uproar of 'how could this have happened' and 'we must take drastic actions', and it has gotten to the level now that each restauration, each new building, etc. has to comply to much stricter demands from fire departments in the Netherlands.
Some people even go as far as to suggest that the fire departments, through these - often ridiculous - demands are trying to cover themselves and make sure there is no way THEY could be held responsible if something goes wrong. The excesses can go as far that some buildings have two or three wide escape doors in one four-yard-length wall. I mean, really, people. And before, the term would probably be described as "eisen ter bevordering van de brandveiligheid" but it's been in the media so often - even going as far as causing half of all fireworks distributors at New Year having to abandon this profitable business because their buildings couldn't comply with these demands - that it became one word. Brandveiligheidseisen. It's a gem. I had to nominate it.
- Stoeptegelincident: In Holland, a lot of curbs are made with tiles. Sometimes youth with way too much time on their hands starts doing bad things, and this time one tile was thrown off a viaduct on a car, killing the driver. The article mentions this as a 'stoeptegelincident', which means curb tile incident. I'm fairly certain there are few occasions that this word would ever be used again, so its introduction really has no point whatsoever, except perhaps by bloggers who have an affinity for useless words and think they are absolutely beautiful because of their uselessness. I mean, when are you ever going to bring up 'stoeptegelincident' again ? At the most, you would be talking about the incident with a tile, and you would be doing the same in Dutch.
- Huiskamerontmoetingsplaats: A word a colleague found in an interior decorating article - huiskamer means living room, ontmoetingsplaats is meeting place. Er... what use is the word "living room meeting place", people ?! When, when, WHEN will that ever be used ?! Nominated for the same reason as Stoeptegelincident.
- Gewetensvrijheid: This one's an interesting one. I didn't know it existed, but it's actually an old word. The etymology of it suggests that it became popular in a time when christianity and the constitution were clashing in the Netherlands, and the word now seems to pop back up in discussions about fundamentalist muslims who are committing unconstitutional crimes out of religious beliefs. The word 'geweten' means conscience, and 'vrijheid' means freedom. Freedom of conscience ? Freedom within conscience ? It's a bizarre combination of two words with a meaning that has actually been defined but makes fairly little sense. In essence, it's used here again to emphasize that the constitution should always take priority over any religion. The constitution itself protects the freedom of religion as long as it does not lead to unconstitutional acts. I agree with the usage, and I agree with the discussion, but fact is, this is one very beautiful word.
And the winner is... by a very narrow margin and giving it lots of thought: Gewetensvrijheid. It's a word that will no doubt be used a lot again in the upcoming near future, considering current events, so we may be seeing lots of it. It's not an entirely fair candidate, since it's already included in the dictionary, but really, it was a word that was about to be fully obsolete until all hell broke loose here. It is, without a doubt, the Word of the Day.
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