Very much so, if only because the words Yankee, dollar, Santa Claus, cookie, coleslaw and snack are derived from the Dutch "Jan Kees", "daalder", "Sinterklaas", "koekje", "koolsla" and "snakken" :)!

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Dutch_origin

But no, the Pennsylvania Dutch are not of Dutch but of German origin..

Recent research has shown that we Dutch have the highest average IQ of all Europeans: 107. We also rank at or near the top of the world in the areas of general happiness, godlessness and same sex marriages. I suspect there is a relation between these statistics. For instance: it's smart to be a-religious, if only because it enables you to live happily in "sin". There may also be a link with the peculiar characteristics of Dutch wildlife, though I would not go so far as to deduce that from the following story, which has made my home town moderately famous in scienctific circles:

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BOFFIN HONOURED FOR NECROPHILE GAY DUCK PAPER

Ig Nobel Laureate UK tour kicks off

By Lester Haines

Published Wednesday 9th March 2005 14:02 GMT

A Dutch researcher has been honoured for his illuminating research into necrophiliac gay ducks - a hitherto unprobed side of animal behaviour which rather eclipses recent work on homosexual sheep and stroppy cows.

According to the Guardian, Kees Moeliker's paper "The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard anas platyrhynchos" gives humanity the first insight into the dark, dark world of ducks. He was apparently sitting in his office in the Natuurmuseum Rotterdam when a rather daffy duck impacted with his window. Moeliker takes up the story:

I went downstairs immediately to see if the window was damaged, and saw a drake mallard (anas platyrhynchos) lying motionless on its belly in the sand, two metres outside the facade. The unfortunate duck apparently had hit the building in full flight at a height of about three metres from the ground. Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard (in full adult plumage without any visible traces of moult) was present. He forcibly picked into the back, the base of the bill and mostly into the back of the head of the dead mallard for about two minutes, then mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force, almost continuously picking the side of the head.

Rather startled, I watched this scene from close quarters behind the window until 19.10 hours during which time (75 minutes) I made some photographs and the mallard almost continuously copulated his dead congener. He dismounted only twice, stayed near the dead duck and picked the neck and the side of the head before mounting again. The first break (at 18.29 hours) lasted three minutes and the second break (at 18.45 hours) lasted less than a minute. At 19.12 hours, I disturbed this cruel scene. The necrophilic mallard only reluctantly left his 'mate': when I had approached him to about five metres, he did not fly away but simply walked off a few metres, weakly uttering a series of two-note 'raeb-raeb' calls (the 'conversation-call' of Lorentz 1953). I secured the dead duck and left the museum at 19.25 hours. The mallard was still present at the site, calling 'raeb-raeb' and apparently looking for his victim (who, by then, was in the freezer).

However, before those readers who have written in recently to express their outrage at funding into preposterous animal research programmes completely blow a gasket, we should note that Moeliker has in fact received a Ig Nobel prize for biology - awarded for particularly improbable research.

Previous Ig Nobel laureates include Ben Wilson of the University of British Columbia, Lawrence Dill of Simon Fraser University [Canada], Robert Batty of the Scottish Association for Marine Science, Magnus Whalberg of the University of Aarhus [Denmark], and Hakan Westerberg of Sweden's National Board of Fisheries, for showing that herrings apparently communicate by farting, and Steven Stack of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA and James Gundlach of Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA, for their published report "The Effect of Country Music on Suicide."

Moeliker himself won his particular gong in 2003, but such is his contribution to the advancement of science that he will next week be wowing audiences around the UK on the Ig Nobel tour. Farting herring expert Robert Batty will also be present at some or all of the events.

unquote

As you no doubt expected: my trip to NYC and Southern Florida was great!! NYC is really overwhelming, vibrant, frenetic, weird and fascinating! During my 3 1/2 days there I only took the subway twice: once to get me a soulfood dinner in Harlem (the waitress turned out to be an academic expert on the relation between the Dutch and slavery), once to the Mademoiselle Liberté/Ellis Island ferry. The rest of the time I just walked and walked and walked: I think my poor shoes must have covered some 100 miles! The MOMA definitely was the highlight: I spent an entire morning there. The Guggenheim was slightly disappointing, as it was covered in scaffolding and only a small part of the collection was accessible, but the architecture is wonderful indeed. Some other stuff I really enjoyed: the view from the Empire State Building, getting warm with a hot cider (with cinnamon stick), Ellis Island, kraut dogs, Starbucks (by now I'm even more or less used to those buckets of slightly coloured hot water maskerading as "regular coffee"), those thousands and thousands of rickety rooftop water tanks (aren't they regularly blown into the streets??), Channel 13 (what a contrast with the cheapness, loudness and superficiality of most other channels!), and of course: having a TGIF drink with a charming Myspace friend :)!

Florida was much less exciting, if only because it's even flatter and wetter than Holland. But we still had a pleasant holiday, even though we're no beach lovers: a few days in Miami Beach's "art deco" district (Miami itself isn't much), Key West (very touristy, but with reason), walking and cycling - yep, I'm Dutch - in the Everglades (the scenery is rather boring, as in all of Southern Florida, but the wildlife is great), St. Petersburg (a great Dali museum!), Fort Myers (the Edison-Ford winter estates), Fort Lauderdale (King Tut!), and then back home. What really fascinated us was the Coretta King funeral service: it even convinced me that religion doesn't necessarily HAVE to be brainless, narrowminded and intolerant...

SOME RANDOM BIZARRENESS

The "Sky Mall" catalogue on Delta flights: I've never seen so much ugly and/or useless stuff in my life! Or is anybody out there craving an electric garlic toaster...?

The small print in TV commercials: even if it were shown for more than half a second it wouldn't be legible. Yes yes, I know: blame the lawyers :)!

Heard on CBS: "kindergarten student". Majoring in shoelace tying?

Gas is still ridiculously cheap: in Europe we pay more than double :)!

The security business must be absolutely booming: I was almost the only one going up the Empire State Building, but there where at least 80 people guiding me along...

To show he really did something about it after the recent child abuse cases in NYC the mayor hired 30 extra.... lawyers. Does that mean some good can come out of our profession after all..?

Several times we were approached by people asking us Europeans not to despise all Americans because of what George W. Dimwit does to human rights, democracy and the world in general. We try, but it's not easy...

The Dutch flag (red-white-blue in three horizontal bars) is being massively desecrated by US businesses everywhere!!! The white bar is used for profane messages like "WELCOME", "OPEN" and even "NOW LEASING"! I think I'll find me a star spangled doormat, as a form of peaceful retaliation.

Times Square may be the centre of the multiverse, but it's NOT a square.

Why do car commercials always show monthly lease rates instead of the price???

American drivers are models of civility compared to Europeans (with the exception of the boring Swiss), but what ARE those NY cabbies honking about all the time??? As always Prof. Pratchett was SOOOOOO right: "The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking." I think it might be a good idea to change the law, so that in future a horn must sound at least as loud inside a car as immediately in front of it.

Any comments on the above :)?

As many of you know I engage in the quite manly game of hockey* ; I've been doing that since 1963... Last Sunday was the higlight in my "career": I scored 4 (yes: four!!) times *biiiiiiiiiiigsmile*! The first ball I touched - within 30 seconds of entering the pitch - was a goal, and after four more contacts with the thing I had scored two more....

Maybe I should quit now, at the pinnacle of my glory...

* Field hockey, for those across the big pond..