Why sayings about the Dutch are so weird 

Coming from the Midwest in the USA, "Dutch Uncle" DOES NOT mean "rude." To give someone the "Dutch Uncle" treatment means you are willing to give wise advice, or tell you difficult realities about yourself, that no one else will give you. It's like this: "David never gets a second date with any girls, because he has bad breath and a weird habit of laughing at awkward moments. Somebody needs to give him the old Dutch Uncle, even though it will probably be difficult or embarrassing for him to hear." Dutch Uncle implies someone who has a close enough relationship with you to be direct and honest, even if it hurts your feelings. You might call it "tough love" also.

Funny. Our "Taking Dutch leave" in French is "Filer à l'anglaise", meaning "to sneak out". Wonder what's the English equivalent? "Taking French leave" 😂

Interesting video. Another interesting fact for you as a historian - there are a ton of Dutch words in the Russian language because Tsar Peter the first was kind of obsessed with Dutch shipbuilding. Some examples off the top of my head: spion - шпион, meubel - мебел, rugzak - рюкзак, reis - рейс, straf - штраф, stoel - стул. The list goes on with a lot of them having some relation to ships!

"Going Dutch" (on a bill) is called "Alman usulü" in Turkish, which translates as "German style."

The way I have heard the phrase "Dutch uncle" used is not necessarily being rude, but being blunt and brutally honest, telling you the truth without sugar-coating it, telling you what you need to hear whether or not you want to hear it.

I thought a Dutch oven was a cooking vessel :o

Really enjoyed this video! My late grandfather was Dutch (desceneded from Dutch immigrants that came to the US before the turn of the 20th century) so its interesting to see how the perception of the Dutch in the English speaking world has evolved. Bedankt!

Love how our language today is shaped by history more than we think, and grateful for this video for shining a light on a part of history I wasn't aware of!

Also, I've usually heard it as French leave, and not Dutch leave but I guess that also makes sense since the French were the enemies of the English for a long time

The dutch have been calling a ‘dutch party’ an ‘amerikaans feest’ for as long as i can remember..

Dutch person, born and raised in our former colony. The device you are calling a Dutch wife is a cylindrical device and is called a guling in the Indonesian language. Like your pilliow it is filled with kapok or cotton. Because of the climate in Indonesia, people tend to perspire more than in cooler climates. By having the guling between your thighs during your sleep, you prevent the left inner thigh from contacting the right thigh.

The U.S. President Martin van Buren spoke Dutch at home, (as did his whole neighborhood) and his wife spoke only Dutch.

Dutch design and Dutch painters are actually regarded highly.

Ek hou van geskiedenis, en jy is Nederlands! Ek bly in Suid-Afrika. Ten minste van wat ek ervaar is daar nie baie negatiewe gesegdes waaraan ek kan dink wat die Afrikaanse mense gebruik vir Nederlanders nie, maar ek het al 'n paar van die gesegdes in die videos van engelse media gehoor.

The Germans actually refer to themselves as "Deutsch", which they roughly pronounce as "Doitsh". Knowing that, It's easily understood how one could mistake the original Pennsylvania Deutsch for Dutchmen with a bit of an accent.

Talking like a 'dutch uncle' is not necessarily rude, but frank and direct. Usually to set someone straight about their behaviour.

I live in Albany, New York, so very familiar with the Dutch influence. I grew up in a suburb of Albany called Guilderland. The mascot of our high school was The Flying Dutchman. My only trip to Europe was specifically to Amsterdam. I went in 1997 and was a judge at the 10th Cannabis Cup. I found Amsterdam to be very fascinating and everyone I met were so very nice! I would love to visit again some day. I am not Dutch however. I'm mostly Irish with a smidge of German and Norwegian. The last guy I dated was Dutch (and Irish and French) with a very cool last name- Van Ravensway...unfortunately that relationship did not last....

i wouldnt get hung up about it , i'm from england and love the dutch people - a lot of us here see you as extended related family separated by a tiny bit of water

As a German living in America who has some interest in German culture and language within America I was yelling at the top of my lungs for how “Dutch” doesn’t always refer to people from the Netherlands as used historically :) Glad that made it into the video in the end! Also, looking forward to the Germanys First Genocide video!

i'm dutch, one blessed to come from one of the 470ish noble family's, when i grew up i had a fascination for history, my grandfather knew a lot and also a little mad, since he was the ''village clown'' Growing up between immigrants in poverty with my mother and grandfather banished from our family i got quite a lot of negative views about dutch, i liked how my grandfather after his clownery could tell many stories about the greatness of the dutch and our family, He told me the world became negative over the dutch, one thing he told me and i found quite funny and weird but found out to be true later on in life researching some of his knowledge he bestowed up to me, since he was the town clown and made me look a lot of things factual while they where not. He told me of dutch people like jan janszoon, who is best known as murat reis, and other dutch people like simon the dancer who went on a privateer pirating spree for the barbary states, as christianity was well into power her with al his foolish beliefs and rules about men and men, these people where allowed to live free of persecution in the barbary states, if you where rich enough to reach it. As such a lot of dutchmen, pillaged european ships and sold the crews as pleasure slaves to these exciled men, this was so atrocious and condemned in all of europe that it gave dutch its negative impact to this day. The dutch government let these barbary state privateers, with murat the most famous reaching the ranks of admiral and governor still could come over to visit his family in vlissingen, and murat is the only person to have ever plundered iceland... !! He was safe and protected in our harbors, because the dutch government only had intrests in ''trading spices and transporting goods'' there was somewhat of a toleration for those dutch who decided to do pillage and take slaves whenever they pleased and not when our government only pleased. Like you said, our kolonial history is spoken very little of, this is something passed on to me as oral tradition from a towns clown who knew 400 years of family history because ''thats what he would be if those oranje's did not take his family rights and lands...'' A lot i find to be factual in history or either plausible about this reason our western neighbours never stopped hating us in the history of language.

Great video! It's so interesting how some phrases and idioms get frozen in a language, while others fall out of use. I've certainly heard and used "going Dutch", but not a lot of the other expressions! And I love weird sayings about nationalities, as long as they're far enough removed in time and circumstance that they aren't doing any harm in the present day.

lol thank you Nederland for introducing the waifu pillow to the Japanese and the world, hartstikke bedankt! 😆

Thanks for the interesting and overlooked areas of history!

Eerste keer dat ik iets van je kanaal heb gezien/naar voren is gekomen, en heb er héérlijk van genoten! Erg leuk opgesteld, en ga zeker meer van je kijken! Super tof!! :)

Absolutely loved this video. I'm always impressed with your humor and approach to making content for RU-vid and Nebula, which I am a long time subscriber of.

I google what a Dutch Rudder was and oh wow😵‍💫 Great videos as always Present Past 🤩

These videos are just so damn good. Presentation, content, delivery 💯

All my Dutch slurs are said with love. ❤

You have to appreciate the English frustration with the Dutch at the time. The Medway Raid, though a tough pill to swallow, just scratches the surface. After the Spanish empire colapsed it was the Dutch ( that tiny nation ) that became the largest world power at the time, not the Brits. They had a vast trade empire, really dwarfing anypower at the time. They had more trading vessels then the rest of Europe combined. Then there were the wars, the first war was kind of a draw with the Brits maybe winning on points, but the Dutch really getting out in better shape. The second and third wars wer fought with a tag team consisting of the French and some German states. Still they could not win. And to add insult to injury in 1688 Stadhouder Willem III invaded ( yes Brits it was an invasion, though maybe not a conquest ) England and became King William III. After this they finally took over as the leading power, though this was mainly because they had now access to Dutch inventions and ideas. The Dutch aided the Americans during their war of independance, even though they were technacly allied to them, and they were very present in the Battle of Waterloo ( in contradiction to what the English like to believe ) Basicly there is this little Nation that outshines them at every turn I guess we can understand the frustration

As an Englishman with a few Dutch mates. I remember fondly one of them asking me why a Dutch Wife is referred to as a love doll. Had know idea at the time, and thought it was amusing joke. Thanks for the video to enlighten my ignorance regarding this.

There are some also in Bahasa Indonesia such as "Seperti Belanda minta tanah" means acting overasking of something/ greedy person or like "Belanda masih jauh" means don't be hurry. They come as expression of Dutch in colonial era.

great and informative channel... keep it up!

Your videos are educational. Keep on. Thank you.

geweldige video, zo veel geleerd!

You were more than half way your video, when I thought... well I can tell you some things about the connection with Germany too and of course when Michiel de Ruyter went sailing up the River Thames (although I thought I heard that connection, by you). A little (personal) disapointment for me, when you found some extra sources who made the same connection. So well done young man. 👍 You did not stop halfway!

Amazing video!!

Thanks alot and i luv all explanations and all effort you have put in this!! Dankje! Dat zal ik niet snel vergeten. (moet alleen zeggen dat de omgekeerde ster van nubela een beetje "sus" overkomt, maar ik ga er maar vanuit dat het goed bedoeld is)

A little while back I did some very thorough research on which states were the biggest rivals of the republic. AKA, I went to the wiki page of all the Dutch wars and counted every war up untill the start of the French revolutionary wars. England stood at the top, with 8 wars on opposing sides. Though there were a significant amount of conflicts where the English and the Dutch were on the same side. The were allies due to being protestant and anti-French, but enemies due to being rivals in trade and maritime power. BTW, I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that that time the Dutch conquered (Invaded and took control counts as conquered, just because it was a consentual doesn't mean there weren't Dutch soldiers on the English shore, or a Dutch king on the English throne) England was actually the moment the Dutch lost out to the English. Because they were allied against France they desided that England would focus on the navy, while the Republic would focus on the land forces. Boosting the English navy. Meanwhile Willem III would establish the London Bank, based on the Amsterdam Bank. Which meant lots of wealthy capitalists would move over to London instead of staying in Amsterdam. Making the Dutch lose a lot of their Relative power, even if not absolute. Though I can't remember the source, so yeah. Still, fun idea, especially if you're Dutch.

Great video! Thank you!

Congratulations with the 200 K!

Quality content 👌

Leaving a comment here for the algorithm, great vid again!

Also, a bunch of people with Dutch Ancestry became very prominent people in 19th century America. Couple of presidents for example (van Buuren, Roosevelt). Also-also just after those 3 wars with the English, the head-of-state of the Dutch Republic actually became the King of England, Scotland and Ireland: William III! He was a first cousin of the English king he deposed (James II) and married to that king's daughter Anne (who was thus also his niece :s). His mother was the sister of James II (Mary). This significantly tied Britain and the Dutch Republic together into a military alliance throughout the late 17th century and first half of the 18th century from which most of the more negative military proverbs may actually originate as after William's death the Republic neglected their military and navy in favour of trade endeavours, feeling secured by Britain's military power. Especially the later phases of the War of Spanish succession (1700-1713) and the whole of the war of Austrian Succession (1740's) soured the military reputation of the Dutch in the eyes of their English allies (timid but meddling state inspectors, geriatric generals, undermanned regiments, etc.). During William III's reign, the Dutch army and navy were held in high regard by the English.

To me, _double dutch_ is skipping with two ropes instead of the usual one.

Love the video! The man-on-the-street part was neat

I've always respected the dutch alone by the slang term dutch oven.

Goeie shit goos keep m comin'. Abbo met alles aan verdiend!

English Dutch rivalry - well there were 3 Anglo-Dutcj wars in the C17th and they came to an end when the English decided to ditch their King and "invite" William of Orange to be King of England. He was married to the ex-Kings Daughter and was sort of joint Monarch but he took the precaution of bringing 50+ Warships and 40,000 troops and landed in South Coast rather than come directly to London Of course English History remembers it as The Glorious Revolution - as Dutch Invasion might have negative connotations. It had a massive if forgotten impact on the development of Great Britain (apart form Northen Ireland where William has not been forgotten)

Dutch also used to mean German in English. So you can blame it on the Germans if it makes you feel better 🙂

In dutch we have a term called met een Franse slag" meaning "with a French twist". Like Renault ,they built a car where it takes 4 hours to replace a light bulb. Tippical french twist, or like in ww1

i always tell parts of this when it gets up when i am in the states but you added much more colour to it tnx.....

I heard that "Double Dutch" (talking gibberish) comes from "Dublin Dutch" and has something to do with a lot of Dutch and Irish working together in the docks and the English not being able to understand the Dutch speaking English with an Irish accent. Don't know if it's true but it does make sense.

As for Dutch wife, as far as I understand its history, it comes from Dutch traders coming to the far east sleeping with those kinds of bamboo/wicker "body pillows" because they felt too hot at night in the hot and humid climates of the far east. The open structure of the "body pillow" allowed for some air flow to cool the men down. As many of these men were sailing there without any wives yet they were sleeping with these things they came to be known as Dutch wives. Later when modern body pillows became a thing they reminded people of the old Dutch wives and started calling them the same. Though they are starting to get known more often as just simply body pillows these days due to their increasing popularity with the anime boom and the negative connotations of the word Dutch Wife. Then when sex dolls became more of a thing, again they started to be called Dutch wives as they are yet another inanimate thing that men "sleep" with. The reputation for the Dutch being very open and accepting of sexuality (whether you consider that positive or negative) probably helped in the adoption of that meaning as well.

I love you !! All of you!! Absolute class and top notch attitude!! And being direct is the best thing someone can do for me, (Experience - 1 year around North Brabant)

I'm the "Dutch Reach" guy at 3:13 woohoo! ❤️ Great video, really well researched.

Super interesting!

I can't seem to find the source for the opinion polls shown at 4:24, any chance of getting a link? Would love to see the complete lists. Good work on the video as always!

To be fair, I had never heard most of these. I first learned the expression _dutch oven_ in 90s Australia (according to you, not a “main” variety of English 🤪) as meaning what kids today call a _hot box_ - that is, smoking weed in your car with the windows closed. I only found out later about the actual cooking vessel and the trapped fart meanings.

I always wondered where these sayings came from and why most of them are so negative. Good job with the research and bringing this to the front in a nicely animated video 🤗👍 Greetings from the south of the Netherlands! 🇳🇱

Dutch cognates!!! I'm glad you pointed out the last point about phrases or sayings with "Dutch" in them are actually using the term in a looser geographic sense.

goeie video!

Great video! Have you considered creating a video about a Dutch national hero Jan van Speijk?

Haha, that is a very intriguing thumbnail.

That was interesting! Please, make a video about the Dutch invasion of Brazil during 17th century. It would be nice to see an outside perspective on that subject... (I'm from Recife - the ancient Mauritsstad :)

Ook een goede middag

Greetings from a fellow Dutch history geek! Love the vid, even more curious about the German colonial one!

Bro investeer in een goede microfoon, dat zou je video’s zo veel goed doen. Verder hele leuke video’s :))))

As an American, the Dutch are sort of an odd situation. On the one hand, we have all of this mildly humorous negative slang (like “Dutch oven”). On the other hand, I’ve literally never heard an American speak negatively _of_ the Dutch in my entire life, not even once (that I can recall, anyway). I’d say attitudes are mildly positive; the worst thing you can say is that we just don’t think about the Dutch that much. There are some vague images of tulips, windmills, wooden shoes, bikes, dikes, and that’s about it. Well: that, and AmStErDaM. But then, ignorance of other cultures is _kind of our thing._ That said, for Americans who’ve actually interacted with the Dutch in some capacity, I’d say attitudes tend to be quite positive. Certainly in my (admittedly limited) experience, the Dutch are pretty great! … well, okay, the Sinterklaas thing _is_ honestly pretty awkward. And I don’t quite get how y’all could pull a third of your country literally _from the sea_ like some kind of _reverse Atlantis_ (without even so much as steam engines!) but somehow can’t engineer stairs that aren’t death traps. But aside from that? Pretty great!

0:19 In Thai language, “go Dutch” is “American share”

Great video! As a Dutch guy I was really impressed with the history. And it does make sense. Deutsch/Deitsch became Dutch. Also, about the language part: Dutch Language has influenced a ton of colonies. If you ever visit Indonesia, a ton of stuff named are dutch words.

Do you know the book by Stuart Berg Flexner, I hear America talking. He also deals with the topics you mentioned in your video

Schitterende video - dank je wel

I've never heard "talk Dutch". I think the more common phrase is "talk Double Dutch" which means talking incomprehensibly.

I can only assume that when proverbs about a country are negative, the countries had some disagreements in the past.

My grandmother would tell my cousins and i, "you got the devil and the dutch Irish in ya." Whenever we were being bratty. Our family has dutch (and Irish) roots, so i just assumed she was referring to that, but perhaps not? Who knows.

Also, have you looked at how much of these slurs might originate from South Africa? Dutch/Afticaans and English speaking settlers and their descendants lived there close to each other but culturally and linguistically separated for hundreds of years. Especially many English speaking South Africans still have strong ties back to the UK which might cause some of their Dutch stereotypes to flow back into British and American English?

Good video! I’m proud to be Dutch 🇳🇱 and I never had problems travelling the world. We are good managers and we speak different languages and aren’t scared of taking the initiative. If you want to research an interresting piece of African history, search Von Letow Vorbeck. I was born in Tanganyika. What happened there during WW1 is amazing! Now living in Brazil 🇧🇷, so interrested in WIC history aswell. Regards, Raymond

11:31 What is your source for this? Wikipedia says this: "Slang terms for mammary intercourse include: [...] French fuck in the United Kingdom - the latter term dating back to the 1930s; while a more jocular equivalent is a trip down mammary lane."

I never thought about Dutch x being derogatory. But I only could think of a couple Dutch oven and going Dutch. Pennsylvania Dutch is the only other term that I can think of.

Okay, we've got all these creeks around here (Upstate NY) called kills, Fishkill, Normanskill (my old band was the Normanskill Saxons). We were always told it was from the Dutch, but I can't find it when I google for the translation... (I don't have access to our family lineage anymore, but apparently I'm descended from someone who signed away part of the Dutch holdings in NY. Somebody named something von Post. We still have a Tulip Festival every year here in Albany (formerly Fort Orange).

Thanks!

Hello, may I ask where the charts you're refering to at around 10:00 are from? Thank you in advance

my (NL) boyfriend (UK) already called our Dutch language as demon summoning gibberish because it sounds weird to him (makes sense) and whenever i show him what some Dutch mean in English, like dierentuin and other words like that, he would call us retarded for making words either ridiculously long or add/swap letters in words to make it sound weird when trying it to pronounce it in English lmao. i love his reactions

Wait till you find out about the sayings Malay & Indonesian have about the Dutch Seperti Belanda minta tanah (Like the Dutch asking for land) - Give an inch and they'll take a mile

Intelligent, jaunty, humorous, and totally unselfconscious. In short: very enjoyable and insightful. Thanks.

@9:12 The stern pictured says "God and my right" in French. How is this related to Charles' flagship? Ope, the coat of arms seems to match up to Charles according to a brief image search. I'll chalk it up to artistic liberties on the part of the painter of the flagship at battle as to the discrepancy between its painted depiction versus the reality of what hangs in the museum.

4:30 , even the British hate themselves so much they aren't even first on their own list. The Team America clip for that was perfect lol, same thing I thought of when I saw that list.

Hi Jochim, you make great videos! From my perspective as an American, "Dutch uncle" doesn't really mean "rude", and it has a rather specific meaning. In my experience one is said to "talk to somebody like a Dutch uncle" meaning you're being very honest and direct, maybe with a bit of exasperation thrown in. I've also never heard "Dutch leave" but instead "French leave", which is common enoujgh that I think some people over here think it's real, in other words French people leave parties just by abruptly leaving. In a way France is the English speaking world's favorite country to dump on.......at any rate keep up the good work!

Just found this channel, so interesting! I thought 'Dutch Courage', was a good thing, like you were drinking to try and be as courageous as the Dutch, and I thought 'going Dutch' was positive too, showing that each person had had such a good time they both wanted to pay haha, I didn't even realise there were so many more, but I do now remember 'double Dutch' from when I was a kid meaning gibberish

One important issue what is not mentioned in this video is fact that the origin of the English language is the Frisian language which is a part of the Netherlands. Around the year 700 a part of the Frisian population immigrated to the UK for a better life. In hundred of years the Frisian language in the UK developed in modern English of today.

Very interesting! I have only heard positive things about the Dutch in my travel research.

the fact that the Germans refer to themselves as Deutsch must have brought some major confusion into this, not just in Pennsylvania.

In German there is "a joke" that Dutch people are so stingy/skimpy, that the NL on their car plates stand for Nur Lemonade (only lemonad - because they order only lemonade in the bar)

I think most people would know Dutch oven as the cooking vessel

Sorry om dit te moeten horen man! Ik weet ook wel dat dit niet het geval is, groetjes uit Vlaanderen. :)

I imagine it originates from the days of the empires and navies? Dutch and British competition. The British are quite imaginative when taking the piss out of other countries.

I grew with an extended family from all over the US and I don't think I've ever heard many of these expressions and the ones I did hear weren't used negatively. The word Dutch, at least at it was explained to me, didn't mean cheap like "going Dutch" or a "Dutch party" it meant something along the lines of economically fair, economically savvy, etc. The Dutch oven I only know as the cooking pot. Still, it was fun learning the history behind so many sayings that apparently exist or have existed in English. Like the word Dutch, the word French as used by Americans often wasn't strickly applied to just France alone but any place where French was spoken, and other similar instances where a word we today associate with a very specific place was used more broadly. It's still done in American English today. Texas toast is a dish that popular in Texas yet eaten beyond it. There's disputes about whether it was actually invented in Texas or not and by whom in Texas if it was indeed invented there. Yet people still call it Texas toast because that's where it became popular. In the South most people refer to carbonated beverages as cokes while the rest of the US refers to them as pop or soda. Though that's more of a brandname item becomes the generic term for an item or action (see also bandaid, saranwrap, google, aspirin, kleenex, tupperware, crockpot, chapstick, frisbee, ping pong, ziploc, xerox, jello, qtip, etc, etc, etc in American English). Great video! Thanks for making it!

No mention of connotation of Holland around Singapore?

fun fact voor 7:47 Amsterdam en Rotterdam liggen maar 11min van elkaar vandaan met de auto. 300km direct ten noorden van NYC, Amsterdam is een stad in Montgomery County, Verenigde Staten.

@14:20 whahahah it always boils down to that right? LOL