Language Museum Blog

Visiting my grandparents recently, I was struck by a phrase my grandmother said frequently: “go tell that to your Dutch uncle”.

I’d never heard this before, and neither my grandfather or mother use the phrase or could tell me where it was from. A quick search doesn’t reveal anything of its origins. My grandmother used it jokingly when she thought someone was saying something fanciful or that she didn’t believe. I got the impression that the “Dutch uncle” was someone fictional, who would believe the stories you would tell.

A “Dutch uncle” is referenced here as “a term for a person who issues frank, harsh, and severe comments and criticism to educate, encourage, or admonish someone”, whereas here it is “a person who bluntly and sternly lectures or scolds someone, often with benevolent intent”. Perhaps my grandmother was using it more in the sense that the Dutch uncle was someone who would punish the story-teller for their lies.

My grandmother is in her eighties and from the West Country in England. Perhaps this is a regional idiom?

Can anyone shed any light on this strange phrase?

A friend sent me the link to this website, which has quickly become a favourite.

Idiomsbykids.com is a project run by a schoolteacher in Nanaimo, Canada. He explains:

These pictures illustrate what an idiom actually says and not what the idiom actually means. We used a loose definition of idioms to basically define idioms to be idiotic. In other words they are expressions that generally need explanations to be understood. They often have very interesting origins but sometimes their origins are not even known. What each student did was draw pictures of exactly what the idiom said, not what the idiom meant.

(For the full definition of an idiom, along with a list of English idioms, click here.)

Idioms can be hard for language learners to understand, so perhaps drawing pictures could be helpful. You could even add your pictures to the website – and see if you can be funnier than the kids! My current favourites include dead meat, a bit at sea, and doggy bag.