> 
> Come to think of it, there are no references in the English language
> to the Dutch other than negative ones, at least that come to mind.
> So political correctness will indeed have the effect of making the
> Dutch be a non-nationality.  Well, maybe "dutch oven" or "dutch doors",
> but in a modern household, who sees those any more.  If you ask school
> children what do they know about the Dutch, they will tell you that
> they wear wooden shoes.  Of course, the English word for a wooden
> shoe is "sabot", and that in turn has given us "sabotage" (literally,
> "the damage done to machinery by wooden shoes").  So Dutch is definitely
> a dirty word in English!  By the way, I didn't know that Daan Jippes is
> from Friesland ("the Lapland of Holland").  Does he therefore speak
> Frisian as his native tongue?  Frisian is the language mostly closely
> related to English of all the other Teutonic languages, and native
> speakers of English thus find a Frisian accent disconcertingly foreign
> and familiar at the same time.  Have those of you on the list who have
> met Jippes found this to be the case?
> 
> Wilmer Rivers
> 
 Actually, I believe the word "sabot" is French. The English word for
wooden shoe is wooden shoe, as far as I know. Most of those negative
"Dutch" expressions date back some centuries to when England and Holland
were trade rivals, and Holland was more on the English mind than it has
been since. For that matter, most seem to be dying out. "Dutch treat"
is about the only living example: "Dutch uncle," being "in Dutch, "Dutch
courage," etc. seem to be nearly extinct. Frisian may be "closest" to
English in some technical grammatical sense, but from what I've seen of
it on the printed page, it's still a lot closer to Dutch, and unreadable
by a native English-speaker without special study. I'd rate Afrikaans, a 
sort of stripped-down, streamlined Dutch with a lot of English influence,
as easier for an English-speaker to learn to read than anything else.
I've met Jippes, but can't remember anything about his accent being 
striking one way or the other.

Just happened to remember one of Disney's early "Alice" shorts was called
"Alice in Dutch." The title is almost meaningless today; I'd think the
reference was to the Dutch-dubbed version of Disney's Alice in Wonderland.

Years ago, the National Lampoon did a satire of ethnic conspiracy theories
by fearlessly exposing "the International Dutch Conspiracy." According to
this, the Dutch were sneakily plotting to drain the entire Atlantic Ocean
dry and then invade America and saw all our doors in half.

Note to Tryg: I've read that the origin of the name of Sambo's restaurants
was a combination of syllables of the original founders' names. I've also
heard that "Little Black Sambo" was originally Indian (which makes sense
since in the story a tiger runs so fast that it melts and turns to butter--
and tigers are found in India, not Africa). It was only later that the
connotations, implications, subtexts, and hidden messages were read into it.

Note to Harry: In the Money Ocean story, "liquid capital" was Gary Gabner's
joke. My version was that because all of Scrooge's money was in the one
gigantic bin, and because Magica's hurricane was preventing access to it,
Scrooge wasn't able to pay his regular bills and he was being slapped with
late charges and lawsuits for non-payment. I fear that clarity was sacrificed
for the sake of a joke here.

Note to David: The last panel of that Strobl story really bothers me. Scrooge
holding the Beagles at bay with a pistol like that seems wrong, whether it's
"legal" by Disney standards or not. Scrooge holding a blunderbuss without even
pointing it anybody would be funny and make the same point; Scrooge pointing a
pistol at the Beagles like he's ready to execute them on the spot is crass
and unfunny. If Disney doesn't have a policy about star characters not
threatening other characters with guns, after seeing this panel I'm ready
to argue that Disney should.

--Dwight Decker

