794-1: Feedback, Notes and Comments

Aces low Krister Rollins and Jim Hart asked about the expression within an ace of ruin which turned up twice within quotations in the piece last week on touch and go. Ruin doesn’t seem to fit with ace because we often think of the latter as meaning highly skilled or exceptional (tennis players scoring aces, fighter pilot aces and so on). However, the word derives from the Latin as for a single thing or unit, hence the playing card, which nominally has a value of one (the shift in most games to its being the most valuable card led to ace taking on its mantle of excellence). In a separate development, the low value of ace led for a while to associations with the smallest possible amount or a tiny portion, and hence to worthlessness or misfortune; there may perhaps have been a nod to as also being a Roman copper coin of small value. Within an ace of meant “within a hair’s breadth” with connotations of disaster only just averted.

Doubled dutch Following the notes here last week about expressions that include the word Dutch, Bart Wijnberg told me about Total Dutch, a book by Ton Spruijt subtitled “Meer dan duizend woorden en uitdrukkingen met Dutch vertaald, verklaard en toegelicht”, which he translated as “More than a thousand words and expressions containing the word Dutch translated, explained and elucidated”. We’re a long way from that total, but readers have provided more examples. Jary Stavely wrote, “When I was a child in the US, one way to physically torment a smaller person was to give him a Dutch rub. To do this, you wrapped one arm around his neck and then forcefully rubbed your knuckles over the top of his head.” Several readers told me that Dutch wife is now slang for a sex doll. Dutch door was mentioned by Mary Louise Lyman (I’d call it a stable door). And Dutchman has other repair senses than in wood or stone: one reader mentioned that it can be a partial repair of the sole of a shoe while Carl Bowers and Megan Zurawicz explained that the canvas strips used to cover the joins between scenery flats in theatres have the same name and that to put them on is dutchmanning. Gilda Blackmore e-mailed, “It just occurred to me that no one has mentioned double Dutch skipping. I’ve no idea why it’s called that. It was very popular when I was a child many years ago. I understand it has made a comeback.”

Richard Bos commented that one of the set last week, the Dutch angle in film, isn’t actually Dutch: “I was surprised by this when I first came across it (there aren’t many good Dutch contributions to the world of cinema), so I looked it up, and found that it’s nothing to do with us. It’s another Deutsch misappellation, and was called so because it was first developed in German Expressionist films.” I’ve since learned that it’s also sometimes known as canted camera.

And finally, I am told that in Dutch, an American party (Amerikaans feestje) is one in which everyone is expected to bring their own food and drink. While Americans go Dutch, the Dutch go American.

[I’m grateful to Harry Lake and Richard Bos for helping me with the various Dutch terms. Enough Dutch for now, thanks.]

Their their Numerous readers criticised my use of their last week in “a person who is formally defending their doctoral thesis in public”. As a unisex possessive determiner, their is now widely accepted in all but the most formal circumstances and avoids clunky formulations such as “his or her”.