You know me, of course I'll update.

Big thanks to the Volkskrant for the Word of the Day, or actually two words. Same article in fact, it deals with a maroccan purse-snatcher who tried to get away on his moped but the victim apparently pinned him down with a car, consequently - and accidentally, is the official version - killing him. This caused great uproar in the maroccan part of this country's population who feel it was an assault on them on racist grounds (instead of self defense during a theft, gone wrong). The victim was prosecuted for man slaughter, but currently set free (if I've got my fact straight), which also divides the community rather strongly.
The article deals with the politicians of course falling over one another trying to make a statement that will put them in the public eye, and it mentions two words that really leapt out: overreactie and noodweer-exces.
Overreactie is an anglocism, folks. There is no Dutch verb overreageren, and it means the same as the english 'to overreact' except as a noun. Noodweer-exces means an excessive self defense, and as far as I know they're both perfect examples of labels only created to fit a small media-hyped incident followed by political debate on the matter. Each of the two words stands a good chance of being accepted into the Dutch language however, since there's bound to be new laws following this incident, that somehow change the way things are now, and that no doubt will include one if not both of these words in the new law when it is added to the constitution.

I had an interesting discussion in Cul de Sac, where I found these words and explained to a few friends there why I took up the task of blogging the Word of the Day, and the mere fact that this discussion went on for a while made them admit these are interesting matters, labels entered into the language only to fit some current events in the media and public debate. I'm therefor going to do my best to find at least one word each day (except if Saturdays and Sundays prove to be too difficult) for the whole year, and then will follow with great interest the developments with our dictionaries, which include at least a few of such new words every year. I agree that a language needs to develop to avoid becoming antiquated, but you can also overdo it, and I will try to scrounge up the words that are good examples of unnecessary labelling by media and in public discussions. Especially considering the gems that turned up in just one week of keeping track of this.

Another update: A very drunk source told me in a bar tonight that "noodweer-exces" is an existing term from legal origins, but I still think it's a ridiculous one. I'm not changing my nomination. However, "overreactie" is now proclaimed today's winner.

Now for something else: I've got a LOT I could be telling you all, especially involving the organisation of the big ClickBurg event on May 1st, but not only am I too busy to bother updating about that, a lot of this information is not certain yet, or semi-confidential, and since all this is taking up most of my non-working time, there's your explanation why my blog is so silent lately - except, of course, for the Word of the Day.