Where did the term, "going dutch" come from when eating out?
928531
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Dutch\n\nand a side note a woman in the netherlands or germany is very grateful when you pay for dinner as opposed to in the US where it is common.
713364
Someone on mindlesscrap.com tried to answer this, but I think they came up with a very inadequate answer:\n\n "The phrase started up in the 1980s by teens in the United States.  It's an offshoot of the use of the word "cool" that had been in existence since the 1940s.  That usage was associated with the cool jazz movement of the 1940s, especially Charlie Parker's 1947 record Cool Blues."\n\nI like my guess better:\n\nIt came from the Grateful Dead culture.  At each G.D concert, there'd be people who would serve up vegetarian fare and love.  Someone started saying that, inspired by the cold bean dish which made a great dip, and didn't require any extra fuel.
98950
"Who chose cake?"\n\nIt's exact etymology is unclear but this much is certain: the British coined the phrase. \n\n"The first documented appearance of the term is in 1943, in an small book of British military slang, although sources claim it was used in the RAF throughout World War Two, and was originally a Yorkshire dialect term in use at least since 1914."
583427
The letters, not to keep you guessing, stand for "oll korrect." They're the result of a fad for comical abbreviations that flourished in the late 1830s and 1840s. \nThere is an interesting article on this at the source webpage I referenced below. \n\nBarbecue\nThis American contribution to international cuisine actually originated in the Caribbean, and the word comes to us via Spanish from its Indian roots. The original sense of barbecue is that of a raised, wooden (later metal) framework used for either sleeping upon or curing meats. The Indians of Guiana called it a babracot and the Haitians a barbacoa. The Spanish evidently acquired the Haitian word and it came into English from the Spanish.\nThe earliest English cite, used for a sleeping platform, is from 1697. By 1733 the word was being used for an open-air, social gathering featuring the grilling of meat.\nBarbecue has one false etymology that is commonly promulgated on the Internet and elsewhere. It is claimed that it comes from the French barbe (beard) and queue (tail); the idea being that an entire pig is roasted, from head, or beard, to tail. This is simply not true.\n(In Mexico, "barbacoa" is a pulled pork-type meat from a certain animal that I won't mention here. It is cooked in a pit for 12 hours or more--basically the same way as the english definition of barbecue.  Slow and long.)
28819
thats a good idea.  thanks for asking the question.  got an idea to help me learn dutch a little more efficently!
225140
I don't know if there's much etymology of the phrase, but here's an article about it which puts forth some interesting possibilities of the origin.\n\nQuote from the site:\n\n"Some linguists and historians think the expression must have been well known during the war years, citing a story about General Eisenhower's dog. The story goes that the dog (Felix) urinated on a map and the officers joked that the enemy was "pissed off." (Leonard Mosely, Marshall, 1982)."
952614
Sounds like a double Dutch side to me.
893583
I'm pretty sure it means that you (India) modified the art forms and fast food coming in so that they fit more into your natural culture.  In other words you used the ideas but on your own terms.  I hope that helps.
534929
This expression, meaning "be very careful to behave correctly",\nhas been in use from the 17th century on.  Theories include:  an\nadmonishment to children learning to write; an admonishment to\ntypesetters (who had to look at the letters reversed); an\nadmonishment to seamen not to soil their navy pea-jackets with\ntheir tarred "queues" (pigtails); "mind your pints and quarts";\n"mind your prices and quality"; "mind your pieds and queues"\n(either feet and pigtails, or two dancing figures that had to be\naccurately performed); the substitution of /p/ for "qu" /kw/ in the\nspeech of uneducated ancient Romans; or the confusion by students\nlearning both Latin and Ancient Greek of such cognates as _pente_\nand _quintus_.  And yes, we've heard the joke about the instruction\nto new sextons:  "Mind your keys and pews."
954134
Here is the definition I found:\n\nNoun. Food. [Northern use. Late 1800s]
212594
It's the Dutch word for miller.
601030
I WAS TOLD A FEW YEARS AGO THAT THE WORD "BIPPY" COMES FROM LONDON, ENGLAND WHICH MEANS A CUP OF TEA OR A SPOT OF TEA.\nCHECK REFERENCES OR SLANG WORDS.COM
343793
From my experience, it is being rude and/or stupid. My girlfriend and I were traveling in the French countryside and stopped for lunch. We didn't speak French, but asked for "Le Menu". The waitress just starred at us. We pantomimed reading a menu and asked again. She just stared at us. She went and got her manager. He just stared at us. Finally I pointed to another table which had their menus. "Oh, La Carte", he said. He came back with a menu. Printed across the cover in big goldleaf it said "MENU". What's up with that????????
946278
It is a term coined from Goldilocks, a fairy tale character. Goldilocks went to the three bears' home where she tried out everything until it was just right. For instance, she saw three bowls of soup and decided to take a tiny sip of each. She didn't like the soup in the great big bowl and she didn't like the soup in the middle-sized bowl but the soup in the teeny tiny bowl was just right.\n\nThe implication is that instead of management, this company uses the trial and error method.
278495
We have a tradition in our mainstream Protestant church called 'pounding', which sounds similar to poundage.  It's an old custom, but nothing all that scary or manipulative.\n\nWhenever we get a new pastor, members of the congregation buy basic food supplies for the parsonage's pantry.  Originally the food was purchased in one pound sacks, thus the term 'pounding'.  Today, someone might buy a pound of pasta and someone else might bring a pound of sugar or canned vegetables.  It's only meant to be a housewarming for the incoming pastor and his family, not a shakedown for money or other valuables.
117976
In Middle English it was farten, while in Old English it was thought to be *feorten (that is a reconstruction as the Old English form has not survived in writing).  The Indo-European root is *perd- "to fart, to break wind".  That root gave Greek perdon "fart", which turns up in the genus name of a type of mushroom, the puffball, also know as the "wolf's fart" (from the literal translation of its Greek name: lycoperdon).  Puffballs shoot their spores out in what resembles a puff of smoke, hence this name and the English dialect name puck-fist ("Puck's fart"). \n\nThe Indo-European root *perd- is thought by some to have been imitative of the sound of farting.  Other languages with similarly-derived words are German (farzen), Swedish (fjarta), Danish (fjerte), Russian (perdet), Polish (pierdziec), and Greek (pordizo).  Oh, and let's not forget English partridge!  Etymologically it is the "farting bird" because the name derives from Greek perdix, which refers to the whirring sound the bird makes when suddenly flushed out of hiding.  The Greeks thought it sounded like farting!\n\nWe can't move on before telling you that the earliest occurrence of a form of fart in the English written record comes from a song called The Cuckoo Song, or Sumer is icumen in, from about 1250:
370275
NewJoe is correct, Macaroni was the name of a coffee/chocolate house in London frequented by homosexuals. But Macaroni came to be a slang term for the elaborate clothing favored by the patrons, a style that was all the rage even with straight men and women for a while ... lots of lace and ruffles, velvets, bright colors, and so on. \n\nThe phrase is making fun of Americans for being provincial, for not understanding the nuances of fashion in the big city. (Kind of like people in New York City make fun of tourists from Kansas who don't know how to dress?) \n\nThe idea is that Doodle was trying to be high fashion on the cheap .. it takes a lot more than just a feather in your hat to come up to be 'Macaroni', just like it takes more than fancy shoe laces to be 'South Beach'.