One of the troubling things when going out somewhere with someone is the matter of who is going to pay. For example, when you go out with your boyfriend or girlfriend, does one person pay for the entire date or will you pay
separately? Obviously, you would assume that the boyfriend will pay for everything but the trend lately has been that each person pays for their own share. We’ve been familiar with this expression for quite some time now but frankly speaking, we’ve used this expression in the wrong context.

In English, we don’t use the term Dutch Pay; instead we use the term ‘Going Dutch.’ The term derives from a slang term in the Netherlands where it basically means that each person participating in any type of shared activity pay for their own share, rather than having one person paying for everyone. Two other terms that basically mean the same thing is ‘Dutch Date’ and ‘Dutch Treat.’ Reading up to this point and realized that you’re confused about Dutch and Netherlands, don’t be; they’re both used interchangeably and mean the same thing. Dutch just basically refers to the people residing in the Netherlands, as well as the language they speak. Now we know two new things about the word Dutch.

So say, “Let’s go Dutch!”, “Let me share the bill, or let’s split it!”