Marc van Oostendorp says ‘Jew’ is ‘cool’

Thanks to Dutch linguist Marc van Oostendorp, the world now knows that teenagers in the Netherlands have taken to using the word “Jew” to mean “cool” or “awesome.” In a blog post this week, Van Oostendorp wrote that he had heard the Dutch word for Jew, “jood,” used that way at a high school in Leiden. He notes that Dutch already has a word to express teenage enthusiasm but it tends to evoke parental suspicion. “The word ‘Jew’ is apparently suitable in that regard,” van Oostendorp wrote.