Dutch Courage

Posted by ESC on May 19, 2001

In Reply to: Dutch Courage posted by Bruce Kahl on May 19, 2001

: : what is the meaning and origin of "dutch courage"

: I do not know the origin.

: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
:
: Dutch courage
:
: SYLLABICATION: Dutch courage
:
: NOUN : Informal Courage acquired from drinking liquor.

Dutch courage is one in a series. From a previous post:

From the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977):"Probably no nationality has come in for so consistent a torrent of verbal abuse from the English as their neighbors across the channel the Dutch...It was not always thus. Until well after Shakespeare's time, the Dutch were usually well regarded in all literary references by British authors." From the I Hear America Talking: An Illustrated History of American Words and Phrases by Stuart Berg Flexner (Von Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1976): "In the 17th century the English-Dutch hostility over control of the seas and disputed parts of the New World was intense.The anti-Dutch tradition of early English settlers persisted and gives (America) such terms as.'Dutch treat,' 1887; 'go Dutch,' 1931, no treat at all, each person paying for his own meal or ticket." From the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Fact on File, New York, 1997): "The Dutch people 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." The section on "Dutch" lists three columns of phrases using the word.