"Winkelhieren" (buy locally) was selected Tuesday as the Word of the Year by Van Dale, the reference dictionary for the Dutch language.
During the year, the public was able to submit new words in the competition for the Word of the Year, resulting in 19 contenders.
Over 9,000 Flemings participated in the decision, eventually settling on the word "winkelhieren", with 33% of the vote.
Welk woord heeft de verkiezing Woord van het Jaar 2019 gewonnen? Ruud Hendrickx (de Vlaamse hoofdredacteur van de Dikke Van Dale) vertelt het je in deze video. #WVHJ pic.twitter.com/to6KC91mYb
— Van Dale Uitgevers (@VanDaleUitgever) December 17, 2019
'Klimaatspijbelaar, which refers to a student who skips school to protest climate change, finished in second place with 17% of the votes.
Egelwegel - a word to describe a passage for hedgehogs between two gardens - came in third with 9% of the vote.
In the Netherlands, the English word ‘boomer’ was voted Dutch word of the year, dictionary Van Dale announced.
The Nominees
The nominees are often words that were created to name new phenomena.
‘babytheek‘: a loan service for baby equipment
‘bezorgschaamte‘: delivery shame, meaning the shame that someone feels because the delivery of a product they have ordered from a webshop causes a lot of traffic, environmental and other nuisances
‘boomer‘: abbreviation of baby boomer, used for someone with old-fashioned or conservative views
‘dampdode‘: someone who died after smoking an e-cigarette
‘egelwegel‘: pathway for hedgehogs between two gardens
‘ecopopulisme‘: ecopopulism, misleading way of raising awareness for environmental issues and climate change, responding to public fears, emotions and prejudices
‘foertformatie‘: a government formation that is seeking to fail formation proposals
‘jagger‘: young, active pensioner
‘jeukrups‘: oak processionary caterpillar, which causes a lot of itching
‘klimaatspijbelaar‘: a student who skips school to protest climate change
‘lawaaiflitspaal‘: device for determining whether a vehicle exceeds the noise standard
‘planepoolen‘: like ‘carpooling’, travelling somewhere by plane for ecological reasons
‘pretpedagogie‘: education that is not based on knowledge but on the wellbeing of students
‘restregering‘: minority government that remains after a majority party has left the coalition
‘sorrymuseum‘: museum in a former colonial power, with an ethnographic collection originating from a former colony, for the creation of which the current management apologises to the descendants of the inhabitants of that colony
‘splinterkind‘: child of divorced parents
‘toiletplant‘: plant on the bank of a watercourse, from seeds derived from human excrements that enter the watercourse via sewers
‘verthuizen‘: redecorating your house as an alternative to moving
‘winkelhieren‘: buying in local companies and stores
The 2018 winner was ‘moordstrookje’ (little murder strip, meaning a bicycle lane that is not worthy of its name).
Jules Johnston
The Brussels Times
