Sunday, June 16, 2019

Nederlandse Beledigingen

English expressions to insult the Dutch: going Dutch, go Dutch, Dutch uncle, Dutch wife, Dutch angle, speaking double Dutch, Dutch courage, Dutch oven, get your Dutch up
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...get Dutched right in your Dutcher!


13 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Which, serendipitously, is named after a Dutch brand of cocoa!

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  2. During the Anglo–Dutch wars during the late 17th century, th Dutch were pretty much victorious in every sea battle. British propaganda stated that this was because everybody in the Dutch warships were drunk so they had no fear... so, Dutch courage.

    At least this is what I have been told.

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  3. Maybe we should start to call these things 'English' in Dutch ;)

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  4. "Dutch angle" actually comes from a mistranslation of "Deutsch"

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    Replies
    1. Many of these date back to the fact Dutch used to be used for things not just from the low countries but any continental West Germanic people.

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  5. Well I heard Dutch babies are really good pancakes.

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  6. I once sold my car using a dutch auction

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  7. Dutchy van benicetothe DutchJune 17, 2019 at 5:34 AM

    There's also "Dutch Disease" for when a country has a sudden windfall of natural resources (e.g., North Sea oil and gas) and the rest of their economy starts to decline.

    (The causality is debated but the name is not.)

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    Replies
    1. Nitpick: refers in this case to the discovery of the Groningen gas field (which is the largest natural gas field in Europe), not North Sea gas.

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  8. Are those mostly British English? I've only ever heard of double dutch, dutch courage, and dutch oven and that last one is only recently (per the meaning depicted) via the internet.
    (From Michigan, US, for context)

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    Replies
    1. Actually, I've heard the term double dutch too but not for that. It was the thing with the two jump ropes.

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  9. I think the reason for "Dutch" being a bad thing in English is simply that the English were at war with the Dutch for a large part of history, so a lot of propaganda was spread about the Dutch.

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