VIRGIL van Dijk, captain of a really good Dutch national soccer team. He’s a living homage to all Van Dykes in America, and there are quite a few of those. Almost all of them are of Dutch origin, the country where dam and dike building became the how-to example for the rest of the world. It produced countless Van Dam and Van Dijk families, often without being related amongst themselves.
A whole legion of them emigrated to America. Actor Dick van Dyke’s family, for example. Plenty of ancestry snoopers have tried to find out from which water town his ancestors hailed, but in vain. Henry van Dyke, another one. He was quickly dispatched to Holland to be the US ambassador to The Hague during the First World War. There was a governor Van Dyke, and a senator, plus a whole bunch of other politicians. But ask an American what a Van Dyke is, and you’ll get a wide array of responses.
For example, a Van Dyke is a mustache-with-goatee, like the one painter Anthony Van Dyck wore in the golden age. But it is also slang for a penis, aka “dick.” The connection is easily made. For years Dick van Dyke was America’s most popular Dick, and hence it was a small step for many to make Van Dyke a dick as well.
Entirely contrary to that, Van Dykes can also refer to a group of girls partying, a cool event you don’t want to miss. Unless it takes place in Van Dyke, a notorious crime neighborhood in Brooklyn. Then again, it’s fine when it takes place in the New Jersey ice cream parlor popularly called the Van Dykes.
Van Dykes is however better known as unfriendly slang for lesbians, although in that case Van is often omitted for convenience. On the other hand, any woman can be described as a Van Dyke if she turns out to be the one who always drives the van with girlfriends going out for some bingo fun.
High time, then, for something everyone can enjoy, in a country that is slowly waking up to soccer, and where the Dutch national team enjoys a certain popularity – led by Virgil van Dijk.
Although, there’s always someone who, just as you’re focusing on the game, interrupts you repeatedly, as Dick van Dyke did all the time with Mary Poppins.
That’s when you get VanDyked by a VanDyker.
