‘Money-laundering’ is Danish ‘word of the year’ for 2018

The recent financial scandals have clearly lodged in people’s minds

For the 11th time, Denmark has chosen a ‘word of the year’.

The P1 radio program ‘Klog på sprog’, together with the linguistic body Dansk Sprognævn, chose ‘hvidvask’, which means money-laundering, out of a shortlist of 12 words nominated.

The suggestions were sent in by listeners and amongst the other candidates were words such as ‘identitetspolitik’ (identity politics), ‘svindel’ (swindle) and ‘samtykke’ (consent).

As well as a representative from Dansk Sprognævn, the jury included politicians Alex Ahrendtsen and Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen and the host of the program, Adrian Hughes.

Last year, the winning word was ‘kvindelandsholdet’ (Denmark’s female football team).