‘Swipen voor een kwarrel’: alumni write about dating jargon
Online dating is hard enough on its own, but these days you also need to know what terms like ‘zombieing’ and ‘prela’ mean. Alumni Milou Andree and Vivien Waszink wrote ‘Swipen voor een kwarrel, a book that discusses all the dating jargon, from the ‘scharrel’ to ‘pigbutchering’.
‘I mainly deal with new words,’ says Waszink, who works at the Institute for the Dutch Language. 'During Milou's internship with us, we noticed that many new words had to do with relationships and (online) dating. And these were not just words describing the fun side of dating; the dark side of the dating scene was also covered extensively in new words. There were so many words that we decided to make a dictionary of them. After that was written, we realised there was still a lot to say about the language of dating. So, that’s what led to this book. Whereas the dictionary was mainly about the meaning of these terms, now we write about them in more detail, explaining for example how the terms came about.'
A mix of English and Dutch
This dating language is very fluid, Andree explains. 'First of all, there are many words from English in the language alongside Dutch words. You find words like ghosting next to ‘twarrel’ (a casual yet doubtful relationship). That's not really surprising. Dating words are especially popular on social media where we already regularly use a mix of languages. We also like to label our behaviour.’
To outsiders or non-daters, these many terms can seem strange and absurd. Both Waszink and Andree have had to scratch behind their ears several times in their search for dating language. ‘One of the terms I had to think about myself is zombieing,’ Waszink says with a laugh. 'It apparently builds on the idea of ghosting - that you suddenly stop hearing from a potential partner. You use zombieing when this partner unexpectedly contacts you again. The person who ghosted you rises from the dead, as it were, just like a zombie.'
Trends
The terms currently in use are not all here to stay. The term ‘kwarrel’ is a contraction of the Dutch word for ‘quality’ and ‘scharrel’ (a casual relationship) and is probably a keeper within the dating lexicon. In contrast, the almost identical ‘quarrel’ has all but been forgotten. ‘That word came up during the corona pandemic,’ Andree explains. 'You pronounce it the same way as ‘kwarrel’, but write it differently. That’s because it was a contraction of quarantine and quarrel. Quarrel was extremely time-specific; now that the lockdowns are over, it’s disappearing again.'
An example that almost transcends time is the term paperclipping. This is what you call an ex-date who keeps contacting you. ‘The word appears to refer to Clippy, Word's irritating assistant,’ explains Waszink. 'But the people who use the term now have probably never come across Clippy, simply because they are too young for it. It’s fascinating that such a word still develops anyway.'