disaster
[noun]
[de ramp, de ram-pen]
Today I spent 7 hours in my car due to snowfall, and yes, that was a disaster!
Examples:
– “Het vertrek van de topspeler was een ramp voor de voetbalclub.”
(“The departure of the top(-class) player was a disaster for the football/soccer club.”)
– “De uitbraak van cholera in Haïti is een humanitaire ramp.”
(“The outbreak of cholera in Haiti is a humanitarian disaster/crisis.”)
– “Wat een ramp! Er gaan geen treinen meer naar huis!”
(“What a disaster! All trains home have been cancelled!”)
– “Tegenwoordig heb je overal skateparken. Wij hadden vroeger niet eens een ramp. Dat was pas een ramp!”
(“Nowadays there are skateparks everywhere. When I was young we didn’t even have a (skateboard) ramp. Now that was a disaster!” Literally: “Nowadays one has skateparks everywhere. We did not even use to have…” Note that there is also a skateboard trick called “disaster” 😉 )
Related words:
– Natuurramp: natural disaster [noun] [de natuurramp, de natuurrampen].
– Catastrofe: catastrophy [noun] [de catastrofe, de catastrofes].
– Verwoesting: devastation [noun] [de verwoesting, de verwoestingen].
– Rampzalig: disastrous [adjective/adverb].
Example:
– “Ik vind ‘onfortuinlijk’ een understatement; ik zou deze ontwikkeling als ‘rampzalig’ willen betitelen.”
(“I believe that ‘unfortunate’ is an understatement; I would like to describe this development as ‘disastrous’. “Betitelen” is like giving something a ‘label/title’.”)
– Desastreus: disastrous [adjective/adverb]. This is the slighly posher version of ‘rampzalig’.
– Nood: emergency [noun] [de nood, de noden].
I’d add a mention of seemingly THE ‘ramp’ in the living memory of the Netherlands — http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watersnood_van_1953
Thanks for this comment; a great addition. So yes, the “watersnoodramp” in 1953 is the biggest natural disaster we ever had, and the reason for building all those huge dams (“Deltawerken”). “Nood” is the Dutch word for “emergency”, I’ll add it to the related words.
“Today I spent 7 hours in my car due to snowfall, and yes, that was a disaster!”
And you still managed to do a DWOTD? That’s blogging beyond the call of duty!!!
“Ramp” is one of those interesting multilingual homonyms. I well remember when my wife first visited the UK and, as we were driving towards some roadworks, became very anxious at the sign “Ramp Ahead”. 🙂
Happy Christmas to all DWOTDers!
Thanks Chris!
And I’ll admit that that sign still makes me anxious 😉