I recently got an email from the NS (the Dutch railway company) inviting me to ‘aftersummer’ with them.
‘Nazomeren’ is the verb version of ‘nazomer’ (na - after, zomer - summer), and while there is no shortage of examples1 of people using it on Twitter, I was surprised to find out it is not listed in any official dictionary.
It means to enjoy warm, summer-like weather in the fall, often by doing activities one would do in the summer, like being outside and taking it easy.
Living in a country with deeply unreliable but mostly bad weather, Dutch people have turned enjoying sunny days into a bit of a religion, especially during seasons when we don’t expect to have any sun.
You can aftersummer in the Netherlands, but you can also do it abroad, by taking a short vacation to a warmer destination.
Like many words in the Dutch language, ‘nazomeren’ often goes paired with ‘lekker’ (tasty), and adjective that deserves its own lengthy explanation, but in short is used to describe things that have some sort of sensory pleasure, not just taste.
So here is my question:
Interestingly, this is one of the first Twitter searches I’ve done where the content hasn’t been immediately hateful, racist or riddled with conspiracies