AA制为何要叫Go Dutch？而Irish promotion为啥是降级？

The phrase “going Dutch” is a 300-year-old insult to Dutch people

今天的英语仍然留有英荷之间这场“尿远比赛”的痕迹。历史通过种种怪异、阴暗、可爱、充满偏见、令人不屑、错误或者偶然的方式影响语言，这就是一个例子。

During its imperial heyday, when England found itself fighting pretty much everyone in Europe, haughty digs toward other nations pervaded everyday language. And today a handful of casual culture-bashing remains embedded in the English spoken by people all around the world.

在大英帝国鼎盛时期，英国几乎跟欧洲所有国家打仗，对别国的傲慢讽刺也充斥着日常用语。今天，全球人说的英语里仍然留存着某些贬损别国文化的例子。

During the Anglo-Dutch Wars that began in the late 17th century, a number of English idioms sprang up that used “Dutch” derisively. Today’s version of the English language retains hints of this long-running pissing contest between the Dutch and the English. It’s one of the many odd, dark, lovely, prejudicial, eye-rolling, mistaken, coincidental ways in which history shapes the way we speak.

在始于17世纪后期的英荷战争期间出现不少以嘲讽口吻使用Dutch（荷兰人）的短语。今天的英语仍然留有英荷之间这场“尿远比赛”的痕迹。历史通过种种怪异、阴暗、可爱、充满偏见、令人不屑、错误或者偶然的方式影响语言，这就是一个例子。

Here are a few that we still use, which are thought to be rooted in the war between the two empires, gathered from the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Place Names. Americans may be familiar with the first in the list; the rest are more commonly used in the UK:

以下是还在用的几种说法，据认为源于英荷两大帝国之间的战争，出自《牛津英语词典》和《牛津简明地名词典》。美国人或许对第一个比较熟悉，剩下的在英国更常用。

· to “go Dutch” or to have a “Dutch treat” is to eat out with each person paying for their own bill, possibly from a stereotype of Dutch frugality

· To go Dutch（按荷兰人的方式）或者Dutch treat（荷兰式请客）意思是在外边跟别人一起吃饭，但各自付账，可能来自节省的荷兰人这种刻板印象。

· “Dutch courage” is nerve one gets from drinking alcohol, possibly related to a stereotype of the Dutch being heavy drinkers, or maybe a dig that associates Dutchness and falseness

· Dutch courage（荷兰人的勇气，也就是酒后之勇），可能与荷兰人爱喝酒有关，或者是讽刺荷兰人的性格和虚伪。

· a “Dutch bargain,” which means a deal struck over booze, likely has similar origins as the above, and is less common today

· Dutch bargain（荷兰式交易）指喝酒时达成的交易，很可能与以上说法来源相似，但今天已经不那么常用。

· to speak “double Dutch” is to speak gibberish or incomprehensibly, i.e. to not be understood by the English

· Double Dutch（讲双重荷兰语）指的是说话莫名其妙，令人费解。

The two superpowers, England (and later the UK) and the Dutch states (later the Dutch Republic), vied for naval dominance in the series of wars starting in the mid-1600s and ending in the late 1700s. By the end of the third of these wars in 1674, England had proven its prowess at sea. The fourth Dutch-Anglo war began in 1781, when the Dutch tried to aid the American colonies in their fight against the English. In it, the Dutch Republic suffered several losses and its power waned significantly.

英荷这两个超级强国从17世纪初至18世纪末打了一系列战争争夺海上霸权。等到1674年第三次战争结束，英国已经证明自己在海上的实力。第四次英荷战争始于1781年，荷兰人当时试图帮助美国殖民地反抗英国统治。在此过程中，荷兰损失严重，影响力明显下降。

The surviving idioms from the Anglo-Dutch Wars share linguistic territory with phrases that target two other popular butts of English jokes: the Irish and French. English prejudice against the Irish often depicts people from Ireland as unreliable or low-class; some phrases that still survive (albeit uncommonly used) are an “Irish promotion” (a demotion), an “Irish hint” (an unsubtle hint, like an elbow jab), and an “Irish” (illogical) statement or action.

参考今天的微博：

【英语陷阱】

Irish (man's) promotion [rise]

［例句］ Mr. Hunt was given an Irishman's promotion last year.

［误译］ 亨特先生去年被爱尔兰人提升了。

［原意］ 亨特先生去年被降级了。

［说明］ Irish (man's) promotion [rise]意为“爱尔兰式的提升”，即降级。

The French, meanwhile, have the distinct pleasure of being associated with sexual promiscuity in British English. The English believed in a stereotype of French wantonness, leading to English phrases like “French letter” (a condom) and various idioms for syphilis and other STDs that associated the illnesses with the French: one might have said, for example, that George picked up a “French compliment,” “French goods,” or the “French measles.”

中文来源：参考消息 编译/赵菲菲

英文来源：QUARTZ

- END -