Dear list members,
On Monday 19 June 2006 Tim Connell asked:
CT> Could the Membership help me with an odd query?
CT> I wrote a review of the new Partridge Dictionary of
CT> Slang for the THES last week and commented on their
CT> definition of a Dutch Uncle, which is someone who
CT> gives stern and possibly unwanted advice.
That's the only meaning I've come across. It's the one in
CDS2 [Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, second edition,
2005]; and in the second volume of Farmer and Henley's
'Slang and its Analogues', 1891.
Under 'uncle' as a noun, the OED gives:
===
e. Dutch uncle (see quots.).
1838 J. C. Neal Charcoal Sk. 201 If you keep a cutting
didoes, I must talk to you both like a Dutch uncle.
1853 N. & Q. 1st Ser. VII. 65/2 In some parts of
America, when a person has determined to give another
a regular lecture, he will often be heard to say, ‘I
will talk to him like a Dutch uncle’; that is, he
shall not escape this time. 1869 East Anglian III. 350
There were the squires on the bench, but I took heart,
and talked to 'em like a Dutch uncle. 1873 Helps Anim.
& Mast. v. 131 Milverton ... began reasoning with the
boys; talking to them like a Dutch uncle ... about their
cruelty.
====
CT> Now my understanding of a Dutch Uncle is someone who turns up
CT> unexpectedly as a benefactor, rather in the style of a Victorian
CT> melodrama.
I've never met that meaning.
--
Yours sincerely,
Eric J Thompson, Reply to: [log in to unmask]
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