English-speakers used to use it to mean all non-Scandinavian Germanic peoples. When the Netherlanders became a distinctly separate group Britain had way more contact with them than with anyone else that the word used to cover, so we used it to refer to them specifically

[–] morgunkorn@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 3 months ago

interesting! thank you for the explanation :)

[–] xJREB@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If I remember correctly, this is also one of the leading explanations why the Pennsylvania Dutch are called like that even though they speak German (or a German dialect).

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago

Germans in America were a massively more influential subculture before WWI. Notably: not because of WWI. The heart of German-American culture was in New York City, where all the richest families took a boat for a holiday cruise, and one year it sank.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_General_Slocum#1904_disaster

[–] arken@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

TIL that "dutch" and "deutsch" comes from the same root!