Interesting these explanations. I didnt know this. And i wonder were is it offensive? The "dutch way" it costumary in my country (Catalunya) and is been always depised by spaniards as us being greedy, stupid and unfriendly people. The philosophy is that you pay for yours, so you are in the group without loosing your individuality, you are there because you want to be and no leaders to drive you anywhere. When going out with groups of majoritary spaniards in my youth, there were always a leader, a centralizer of activities, a dictatorship in saying who was a nice one and who no because had objections. I stopped going with this kind of people. In the "dutch way"/"catalan way" you feel the freedom of a good company and the creativeness of everyone feeling free to expose ideas for the comfort and merry go round of the group. It creates respect and understanding for each other. And if you are hungry, or thirsty or whatever you are not having to be submissive to any "group ideal of fun " and so no regrets, everybody get the general "happiness" through its own ways. This is democracy in its most personal level, the most important, maybe.

现在人很少说go dutch了，对荷兰人来说，这个说法有点offensive,所以一般都说split the bill

Dutch = 荷蘭的 對啊

Go Dutch, just slang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Dutch Quote: The phrase "going Dutch" probably originates from Dutch etiquette. In the Netherlands, it is not unusual to pay separately when going out as a group.