美语词汇掌故第 3 课：Dutch-2

An important person, a parent or teacher perhaps, was angry with you.

Some of the Dutch expressions heard in American English have nothing to do with the Dutch people at all.

In the seventeen hundreds, Germans who moved to the United States often were called Dutch.

This happened because of mistakes in understanding and saying the word "Ditch", the German word for German.

Families of these German people still live in the eastern United States, many in the state of Pennsylvania. They are known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

During the American Civil War, supporters of the northern side in the central state of Missouri were called Dutch, because many of them were German settlers.

In California, during the Gold Rush, the term Dutch was used to describe Germans, Swedes, and Norwegians as well as people from the Netherlands.

President Theodore Roosevelt once noted that anything foreign and non-English was called Dutch.

One expression still in use to talk to someone like a Dutch uncle did come from the Dutch.

For Dutch were known from the firm way they raise their children.

So if someone speaks to you like a Dutch uncle, he is speaking in a very severe way. And you should listen to him carefully.