Two days in the office and I'm sick.

I can't believe this - two weeks of working my ass off and running around in my own time, even taking an exhausting trip back and forth to London, and I'm healthy as can be. Two days back in the office and I'm sick as a dog.
I'm not home, of course, because I'm not a wuss. A bit of coughing, sore throat, crappy feeling and sneezing large green blobs isn't enough to keep me off my duties. And likewise I'm, of course, also here to report today's candidates for the Word of the Day for you all. I'm hardcore. I have character. I'm keepin' it real. And all that jazz.

So let's have a look while I haven't sneezed all over the newspapers yet, shall we ?

- 'prijsvechterspier' (price competitors pier): this comes from an article about Schiphol Airport, which has plans to expand with another pier, specifically built for passengers of cheaper flights. The usual arguments apply here: how many 'prijsvechterspieren' will there ever be, does this justify creating a whole new word for it, can't this just be expressed in a few loose words instead, isn't it just way too long, etc. - and besides that, it can also be read as 'price competitor muscle' which makes no sense whatsoever.
- 'artsenstaking' (doctor strike): Oh, come on ! How many doctor strikes will there be ?? It's a hype word, for chrissakes !
- 'fietschip' (bicycle chip): after creating a chip that can be planted on pets to track them down electronically in a database when found, they've now invented a similar chip that can be placed on bicycles so that cops can easily and electronically check wether or not this bike was stolen. Hard to understand perhaps for foreigners, but here in the Netherlands the majority of our population has bicycles that they use frequently and theft is an everyday occurrance. Although I suppose the object needs to have a name, my objection is that 'schip' means 'ship' (albeit 'fiet' doesn't actually mean anything). The word looks confusing. Put a dash in there, darnit !
- 'tonnairs' - this word is basically a variation on 'millionairs' (I doubt I have to translate that) and means 'people with wealth that deals with hundreds of thousands, not so much millions'. Apparently this is a new target group for one of the financial companies, who are planning to target those consumers specifically - so not the insanely rich, but not John Doe off the street, either. I think the word looks ridiculous and I doubt anyone will discuss tonnairs in the near future. Unless we get a TV show 'who wants to be a tonnair'...
- 'hitlijstmuziek' (pop hits lists music): SlamFM, which was created to be a strictly dance radio station, is apparently playing too many hits and will now probably be fined with some 100,000 euros. That's right: a *dance* station playing too many *hits*. (Don't people have anything better to do with their time ?? Aren't there any, oh, I dunno, actual criminals to catch ?) But what makes it worse is that this monstrosity of a word needed to be created just to describe what kind of music they're being fined for. We don't need this word - don't call us, we'll call you.

But, I can't ignore this: an article celebrating the invention of a new word. That's right: a news article with a new word for a certain phenomenon it's describing, that not only honestly admits this word was specially created, but in fact is *about* its creation. No matter how great the other candidates are, I have to make this the Word of the Day. I have to ! The word of the day is 'cryomeren', and it was invented as a verb to describe the lyophilizing (freeze-drying) of the deceased. That's right - when your loved one has passed on to possibly a better place, you don't have to choose merely between burying or cremating (or mummyfying, or having them cryogenically frozen, etc.), you can now also have them freeze-dried and then vibrated into powder. Nothing shows you loved ol' grandma like having her 'gecryomeerd', now, does it ? The thought itself is sickening enough, and because 'freeze-drying' simply sounded too ghastly (gasp ! a ghastly procedure with a name that actually describes what it is !) there was a competition to come up with a new word for this. 750 potential words were sent in, and sixteen people came up with this one. 'cryo' is obvious, I suppose, but it took some thinking before I figured out 'meren' was copied off 'cremeren' (to cremate).

Here's to you, Holland. Beautiful country, where mainstream media have to call upon the people to come up with a new word for freeze-drying and then pulping up the dead.
In this context, I guess I have no right claiming that *I* am sick.