dutchmen

[Laurence Horn]

>>Farmer & Henley list a whole bunch of anti-Dutch slurs and epithets,
>>whose origin they associate with the Herring Wars over supremacy of
>>the North Sea fishing routes.
>
>There sure are plenty. But perhaps the current "dutchman" is much more
>recent, and of innocent origin? Like maybe from an image of a Dutch fellow
>plugging an undesirable aperture in an embankment, like in the story?
>
That does seem more plausible than the Dutchmen-as-blocks-of-wood
metaphor, but on the other hand it seems as though the current one
should instead be "little Dutch boys", given the dike-plugger
allusion.

L

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