Translated by Adriana Dancu
The word ‘one and a half meters society’ (or anderhalvemetersamenleving) has been chosen as word of the year 2020 by Dikke Van Dale (a Dutch language dictionary). It got more votes than ‘myth trap’ (fabeltjesfuik) and ‘virus wappie’ (viruswappie).
One of the first people to publicise a variant of ‘one-and-a-half-meter society’ is Sieger Dijkstra, chairman of VNO-NCW Noord (an employers federation).
Dijkstra, who lives in Beetsterzwaag (south of Drachten in Friesland), already talked about the “one and a half meters economy, or the way of life after the Coronavirus crisis”, on 28 March: “Very doubly that now ‘1.5 meters society’ is the word of the year. This is, especially after last night, not the best time in our existence. This word made quite a few headlines in March.”
The one-and-a-half-meter society, or community symbolises how we experienced this year, says Dijkstra: “We knew immediately that the word would catch on, because that was really the practice at the time. We never saw that it would end up in the Van Dale.”
Dijkstra would have preferred that the word would never have arisen: “everyone would have preferred that this word was not in our vocabulary, and that we did not experience all of this.”
After the new measures that Prime Minister Rutte announced on Monday, many companies will be hit hard, says Dijkstra: “We did not expect and did not hope that it would come to that.” However, he understands the necessity of it: “There is no other way to deal with all infections.”
Dijkstra does hope that everyone will support the entrepreneurs. “We have to show solidarity with all kinds of schemes. Many entrepreneurs were ready for the best weeks of the year, which could have made up for a lot. We have to see how we can help them by buying products from them in a different way,” says Dijkstra.
The article source can be found here.
