There are a lot of Dutch-related words and phrases in English. But frankly speaking, the Dutch people and their language have been so offended by the English language over the past three centuries that in 1934 their government decided to drop the word Dutch and use Netherlands whenever possible. But the stratagem didn't succeed in stopping up the dike. Dutch remains what one dictionary calls "an epithet of inferiority." In both England and America a torrent of verbal abuse has descended upon the Dutch.

It all began with the bitter hostilities between England and Holland in the 17th century, when the Dutch colonial empire threatened to usurp Britain's own. Two major wars were fought over this naval and trade rivalry and a flood of invective was loosed upon the Dutch that has barely subsided over the years. To complicate matters, the name Dutchman, from the German Deutsch, has been applied to Germanic peoples (for instance the Pennsylvania Dutch), such contacts and two world wars adding still more derogatory expressions to the list. The following is a short dictionary of abusive terms using the word. Though it runs to some 60 expressions, surely a complete list would more than triple this amount. All of these terms but a few are derogatory. If only in the subtlest way, each makes the Dutch either cheap, cowardly, stubborn, deceitful, or worse, all a far cry from the traditional picture of Hans Brinker, bright tulips, and gently turning windmills...

double-Dutch - double talk; gibberish; also an American play-language and a jump-rope game.

Dutch act - suicide, probably referring to a suposed German morbidity, rather than a cheap Dutch way to end it all.

Dutch anchor - something important left behind, from the story of the Dutch captain who wrecked his ship because he left the anchor home.

Dutch auction - an auction starting off with inflated prices

Dutch bargain - one clinched over liquor; a one-sided bargain.

Dutch bond - form of bonding courses of stones or bricks in walling.

Dutch brig - cells on board a ship.

Dutch build - a thickly built person.

Dutch by injection - describing an Englishman living with a Dutch woman

Dutch cap - a prophylactic or pessary.

Dutch cheese - cottage cheese; a bald-headed person.

Dutch chinker - a long, narrow, hard yellowish brick made in Holland.

Dutch clover - white clover, Trifolium repens.

Dutch comfort - consolation ("Thank God it wasn't any worse").

Dutch concert - a great uproar; everyone playing a different tune.

Dutch courage - courage inspired by booze the Dutch once said to be heavy drinkers. "The Dutch their wine and all their brandy loose, / Disarmed of that from which their courage flows ..." (Edmund Walles, 1665).

Dutch cupboard - a buffet with open upper shelves.

Dutch defense - a surrender, no defense at all.

Dutch door - a two-section door that opens at the top or bottom.

Dutch foot - a furniture foot.

Dutch gold - an originally Dutch alloy of copper and zinc used for cheap imitation gold leaf.

Dutch kiss - sexually intimate kissing (Not in a good way)

Dutch lap - an economical shingling method.

Dutch luck - undeserved luck.

Dutch lunch - an individual portion of cold cuts; probably an American expression referring to the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Dutchman - a hard lump on brown sugar.

Dutchman's-breeches - the popular plant Dicentra cucullaria, the flowers resembling baggy breeches; patches of blue in a stormy sky, in allusion to patches on a Dutchman's trousers, or because there is just enough blue to make a cheap pair of pants for a Dutchman.

Dutchman's drink - the last one in the bottle.

Dutchman's headache - drunkenness.

Dutchman's land or cape - illusory land on the horizon.

Dutchman's log - a piece of wood used in an economical navigation method, the practical method itself.

Dutchman's pipe - a climbing vine, Aristolochia dorior, whose calyx resembles a tabacco pipe.

Dutch medley - everyone playing a different tune.

Dutch nightingale - a frog.

Dutch oven - economical heavy kettle or brick oven.

Dutch palate - a coarse, unrefined palate.

Dutch pennants - untidy ropes hanging from alof on a ship.

Dutch pink - blood.

Dutch praise - condemnation.

Dutch pump - a nautical punishment.

Dutch reckoning - pure guesswork, or a lump account that would be cheaper if itemized.

Dutch red - a highly smoked herring.

Dutch route - American slang for Dutch act above.

Dutch straight - a poker hand.

Dutch treat - a meal or entertainment where each pays his own way.

Dutch two hundred - a bowling score of 200 made with alternative strikes and spares.

Dutch uncle - an unsparingly frank and critical person, an Americanism probably referring to the Germans.

Dutch wife - the pillow of an Englishman in the tropics who takes no natives mistress; or a framework used in beds to support the legs.

High Dutch - High German.

His Dutch is up - he's angry.

I'm a Dutchman if I do - Never! From the days when "Dutchman"was synonymous with everything false.

it's all Dutch to me - it's all Greek to me, an American expression.

Low Dutch - Low German.

my old Dutch - my wife, but possibly from the word duchess.

Pennsylvania Dutch - German emigrants in Pennsylvania; their language.

that beats the Dutch - that beats the devil, deriving from an American song of the Revolution.

to Dutch - to harden or clean by placing in hot sand; to run away. desert.

Dutch f*ck - mammary intercourse

go Dutch- to pay one's own expenses on a date or outing.
in Dutch- in disfavour or trouble

 
cyberstranger