dutchmen

[Jonathan Lighter]

Germans were popularly called "Dutch" throughout the 19th C., so just imagine the humor behind the nickname"Old Dutch Cleanser" painted on an American artillery piece in a famous World War I photo.

  Well...I guess you had to be there.

  JL
sagehen <sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: sagehen
Subject: Re: dutchmen
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>At 6/9/2006 10:35 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>to talk double-dutch: to talk gibberish, nonsense
>
>There is also the double-dutch of jumping rope (rope jumping?) --
>using two ropes. circa 1940s, in my memory. Not in OED2.
>
>Joel
~~~~~~~~~~~~
There's another "dutch" association in our folklore, that of great
cleanliness: thus "Old Dutch Cleanser" which was a market leader in its
field for many years. Netherland, not Pennsylvanian, was the referent,
since the icon was a figure in wooden shoes & a great winged cap.
AM

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