By Orangemaster

I saw this on Dutch commercial television, which more often than not features American series and subtitled or dubbed American advertising ‘like you never left the US’.

Translation:

Guy: Hey, you owe me money.

Girl: …

Guy: For the burger.

Voice-over: So very Dutch! Our new (product name), etc.

Guy: Yep, right amount.

Voice-over: It can’t get any more Dutch.

The adjective ‘Hollands’ meaning Dutch has this reference to the olden days when the Netherlands was just North Holland and South Holland. It can be used in a neutral manner, derogatory or positive manner, depending on the context. In this case it denotes comfort food (brown bread and cheese being a classic here), which is positive.

The negative part remains the stereotype that the Dutch are cheap, which is a gross generalisation, but sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The Dutch are traditionally thrifty and save a lot of money and don’t run rampant with credit cards, not so much cheap. Oh, and all the Dutch television shows with people about to lose their homes due to overspending kill this stereotype, with the Dutch calling their situation ‘an American one’.

‘Going Dutch’ means paying your own way in English, which in American dating land is surely not a given. And of course, anyone who only wants to pay half the bill at a fast food chain while on a date could easily be labelled poor, not cheap.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 10:39 am and is filed under Food & Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.