Only the Germans like their words longer…
Anderhalvemetersamenleving or 1-and-a-half-meters-society is Van Dale’s word of the year for 2020 (article from dutchnews.nl). Van Dale is a Dutch dictionary company. Anderhalvemetersamenleving took 30% of the vote, with 12,000 votes cast.
Here are a few interesting articles about the lockdown that are available in Dutch from nos.nl:
Hoe een telefoontje van Van Dissel alles veranderde – How a phone call from Van Dissel [Dutch virologist] changed everything. It’s an article about how we went from the press conference on the 8th to the hard lockdown announced last night. That’s less then a week if you are counting.
Niet-essentiële winkel mag open als die ten minste 30 procent essentiële artikelen verkocht – Non-essential stores can open if 30% of their items are essential. In that scenario they can only sell those essential items. If a store sells at least 70% essential items then they can sell everything. But that is, of course, a game of percentages…
Above is a picture taken in De Passage (a covered shopping area) in The Hague last weekend. I thought it was cute to see the stockings hiding behind the windows on the second floor, which isn’t accessible to shoppers.
