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The new edition of Dikke Van Dale contains 979 new English keywords, including influencer, airfryer, Covid-19, body-shaming, and big tech. English words make up about 10 percent of the new words added to the Dutch dictionary. The 16th edition of the Dikke Van Dale, which will publish on March 22, also includes words from Chinese, Italian, Moroccan, and Spanish, among others, NU.nl reports.
Another significant change the editors made is to include the gender-neutral x next to words referring to people, where applicable. These words already had the m for male or v for female after them. Words that clearly indicate biological gender won't get the gender-neutral x.
The new edition of the dictionary also includes words around current topics like climate change, inclusiveness, and social media. Coronavirus-related words are also new to the dictionary. Over 10,000 new expressions and proverbs are also included. And the definition of each word has been modernized. No words have been deleted.
According to the publisher, the many new words and modernized definitions show that language changes along with society.
The previous edition of the Dikke Van Dale was published in 2015.
How do you understand what your oncologist is saying when you’ve never heard any of these words before? More specifically, how do you make sense of these words being applied to you?
I certainly struggled to understand from the moment I heard “cancer.”
I made a lot of comprehension mistakes that hurt me during particularly vulnerable points in my care. One that still brings up all the emotions happened soon after I was told that my lung biopsy had returned with evidence of breast cancer. This information, which came as an awful, almost-physical blow to my husband and me, led to multiple additional tests and scans, a change from the early-stage clinical trial I had said “yes” to before I had officially been staged, and an even larger vocabulary I had to learn stat (to borrow a well-worn medical word).
I can still remember having to fill out a single-page form prior to another CT scan. It asked, “What is the reason for this test?” I answered with what my paperwork said: Restaging.
Restaging? I felt a surge of relief and hope. Could I be “restaged” from stage 4? Was my oncologist looking to see if I wasn’t actually stage 4?
This is the world I lived in. A world where I didn’t understand much of what was happening to me. I didn’t know the words to use with my doctor to get to the information I actually needed.
I misunderstood a lot.
I didn’t even know that “restaging” could mean anything other than what it sounded like to me: a chance to restage me from stage 4 to something else (such as somewhere between stage 0 and stage 3). I didn’t search the term online, though I wish I had because understanding what the term meant for me could have saved me from more psychological pain later.
I like this definition of restaging: “Restaging CT scans have the potential to impact management by identifying new distant metastases ...” from an article in the International Journal of Surgery about colorectal cancer — it is straightforward about the purpose when cancer has metastasized.
In this world where I was wandering around, trying hard to get my bearings but unable to even find the map, let alone read it, there was a lot of fear, anxiety and renewed hopelessness with each misunderstanding.
Though my confusion about what restaging meant is possibly an extreme case of failure to communicate, the necessity of learning cancer vocabulary is not reserved just to me. I spend a lot of time thinking about how patients and doctors talk to each other and how it often seems to me like we don’t have a large-enough shared vocabulary — a problem that is especially challenging for people with advanced cancer.
I like it when I see new resources for people diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer because I will never forget what it was like to be tossed into a world where I couldn’t navigate without hurting myself. This morning I came across a useful tool for anyone with metastatic breast cancer, but maybe especially those who are newly diagnosed.
The mBC Dictionary was compiled by breastcancer.org and Pfizer, and it includes the 20 most-common terms searched by people on the breastcancer.org metastatic breast cancer pages. The dictionary can be easily found and downloaded as a PDF.
“Restaging” isn’t included (thankfully it didn’t make the top 20 cut-off) but I have experienced confusion about many of these words over the course of my treatment, and they are often topics of disagreement in support groups. Finding concise definitions for phrases and words we all hear or see is so useful for patients unfamiliar to this serious diagnosis.
Will this dictionary expand into other areas (clinical trial terminology comes to mind)? I hope it does, because it’s impossible to underestimate the value of good communication and better understanding when it comes to living with cancer. I speak from experience.
For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.
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Nearly 1,000 English words added to official Dutch dictionary The Brussels Times[unable to retrieve full-text content]
No DNA tested needed, this grandkid loves the 'dictionary' Mississippi Valley Publishing
By John R. Stone
It seems like patriotism is a big thing these days, or has been for the past few years.
My dictionary, an older Merriam Webster, defines a patriot as “one who loves his or her country.”
I can live with that. But I would go a little further. How much does a patriot love his or her country?
Is a person a flag waving, USA t-shirt wearing patriot or a person who loves his or her country enough to actually do something to make it better?
I put our military veterans at the top of the list of people I consider to be patriots. These are people who gave up a portion of their lives, a couple of years or more, and many faced deadly situations because their country asked them to do so.
Others I would put on my patriot list would be people who served in the Peace Corps, Americorps and other nationally supported outreach programs.
These people didn’t get paid much, put their own careers on the back shelf for at least a couple of years, and sometimes risked their lives all so that the image of the United States of America would be projected in a positive way around the world.
They got their hands dirty, they just didn’t sit around in a comfortable room and think lofty thoughts about what others should be doing, they got out and did it themselves.
I think voters are patriotic. An essential part of our democratic process is for the owners of our country, U.S. citizens, to select the leadership they want. They aren’t always going to get what they want, leadership roles go to those who garner the most votes, but they have the right and obligation to express their opinion about who should lead various levels of government in this nation.
I think public officeholders are patriotic if they seek office for the correct reason, that reason being trying to make this country better for all of its citizens.
There are those who could do far better economically in the private sector income wise but who choose public service as officeholders to make our country a place where all can grow and benefit.
I do not consider folks who run to grind axes to be patriots nor do I consider those who seek election to public office as a career to necessarily be patriots. I don’t consider those who seek public office to wield power over others to be patriots. And I don’t consider those elected to office who use the system to their advantage or use their power for personal financial gain to be patriots.
I guess I have a high bar to measure patriotism!
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As we get older it seems we spend more time mourning the loss of people we know.
The most recent in my life and Mary’s is John P. Shea, or JP as most of us knew him.
John actually worked here at the Tribune many years ago for a couple of years in sales before moving on to a bigger, and probably better paying, job at American Solutions for Business.
I bought some cars from JP when he was at Gloege’s and he was a straight shooter. He had a firm handshake, looked you in the eye when he talked to you and did what he said he would do. You could trust him.
He was always one of those people it was a pleasure to be around whether it was in a working situation or after hours. We had some good times over the years whether it was at work, just talking, or after hours. He was just a really good person.
Our condolences go out to Cheryl, David and Patricia along with his brothers, sister and other friends and relatives. Rest in peace, JP.
Thought for the week: “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years.” Abraham Lincoln
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Translation of Peng Shuai’s original social media post Durham Herald Sun