The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

Beastly Foreigners

The history of English prejudice is engraved in the English language.

These days the Dutch are considered inoffensive, charming even; but it hasn’t always been so. The Dutch used to be a major naval and trading power just across the North Sea from Britain, and so Holland and Britain were natural and nautical enemies. Even when the two countries weren’t fighting outright battles, the English would subtly undermine their enemies by inventing rude phrases.

Dutch courage is the courage found at the bottom of a bottle, and a Dutch feast is a meal where the host gets drunk before his guests. Dutch comfort is no comfort at all. A Dutch wife is simply a large pillow (or in gay slang something far more ingenious). A Dutch reckoning is a fraudulent price that is raised if you argue about it. A Dutch widow is a prostitute. A Dutch uncle is unpleasant and stern, and only tight-fisted diners insist on going Dutch. That’ll show them.

In 1934 the Dutch government finally noticed all these phrases. They decided that it was too late to change the English language and instead made it a rule that their ambassadors in English-speaking countries only use the term The Netherlands.

The Dutch probably invented their own equivalent phrases about the English, but nobody knows what they are, as the Dutch language is double Dutch to us. Anyway, the English were too busy thinking up nasty phrases about their other neighbours.

Welsh rarebit used to be called Welsh rabbit, on the basis that when a Welshman promised you something nice to eat like rabbit, you were probably only going to get cheese on toast. The English also used to believe that the Welsh were crazy for cheese. Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811) records that:

By the same token, a Welsh carpet was a pattern painted, or stained, onto a brick floor; a Welsh diamond is a rock crystal; and a Welsh comb is your fingers.

When they had finished abusing the Welsh, the English phrase-makers turned their fury on the Irish, who made Irish stew out of leftovers. In fact, it was decided that the Irish were so nonsensical that nonsense itself was called Irish.

Yet the great enemy of England has always been France. We believed the French to be dishonest lechers, which is why a French letter is a condom and French leave is truancy, although here the French have got their own back by calling the same thing filer à l’anglais.

And when the English had got bored with just using the proper names of countries to insult them, they decided to think up nasty names for absolutely everybody.