Geographical euphemisms?

[Laurence Horn]

>The dividing line between your "geographical euphemisms" and ethnic slurs is
>arbitrary---e.g. how would you classify "Mexican standoff"?
>
>That said, here are my contributions:
>
>"to shanghai"
>
>any number of terms for diarrhea, such as "Virginia quickstep" or "Bangkok
>belly" (although the latter may refer specifically to amebal dysentery)
>
>"Sloane Ranger" (the reference is to Sloane Square in London)
>
>"Kentucky breakfast" which consists of a steak, a bulldog, and a bottle of
>bourbon.  This may be a nonce usage---it appeared in the obituary of a
>Kentucky mountains resident in 1961-2.  Why the bulldog?  To eat the steak.
>
>"Bronx cowboy"---again a possible nonce usage, from Harry Harrison's _The
>Technicolor Time Machine_
>
>"mountain dew" (not the soft drink but moonshine whiskey---the stereotype is
>that moonshiners are exclusively mountaineers)
>
>"Acapulco gold" (either marijuana in general or a specific grade of marijuana)
>
>"Night of the Sicilian Vespers" (the original one, not the 20th Century
>re-enactment)
>
>"Welsh rabbit"
>
>"prairie oysters"
>
>"Hudson seal"
>

Here are a few, some overlapping with the above or with other posted
nominees, from a paper ("Spitten Image") I've submitted to _American
Speech_:

Welsh rabbit: a dish with melted cheese and various other ingredients

Irish apricot (apple, lemon):  a potato
Irishman's dinner:  a fast
Irish evidence:  false witness
Irish kiss:  a slap in the face
Irish promotion:  a pay-cut
Irish tan:  sunburn
Irish twins:  two siblings who are not twins but are born less than a
year apart
Irish wedding:  the emptying of a cesspool

Dutch act:  suicide
Dutch auction:  a sale at minimum prices
Dutch bargain:  a bargain all on one side
Dutch-clock:  a bedpan; a wife
Dutch concert/medley:  a hubbub, whereat everyone sings and plays at
the same time
Dutch consolation:  Job's comfort ("Thank heaven it is no worse")
Dutch courage:  pot-valiancy, courage due to intoxication
Dutch fuck:  the practice of lighting one cigarette from another
Dutch milk:  beer
Dutch treat:  an outing at which one pays one's own way
Dutch widow:  a prostitute
Dutch wife:  a bolster (on a bed)

Alabama wool (= cotton)
Alaska turkey (= salmon; cf. Jewish turkey = salami, Irish turkey =
corned beef)
Albany beef (= sturgeon)
Block Island turkey (= salted codfish)
Yarmouth capon (= herring)
and of course prairie oyster, which comes in two tasty varieties (raw
egg yolk dipped in whiskey and sprinkled with Worcestershire and hot
sauce or cooked calves' testicles swallowed whole).

In the paper, I dub these "ironyms".

Larry