Pseudo-anglicisms are words in languages other than English which were borrowed from English but are used in a way native English speakers would not readily recognize or understand. Pseudo-anglicisms often take the form of portmanteaux, combining elements of multiple English words to create a new word that appears to be English but is unrecognisable to a native speaker. It is also common for a genuine English word to be used to mean something completely different from its original meaning. Pseudo-anglicisms are related to false friends or false cognates. Many speakers of a language which employs pseudo-anglicisms believe that the relevant words are genuine anglicisms and can be used in English. When many English words are incorporated into many languages, language enthusiasts and purists often look down on this phenomenon, terming it (depending on the importing language) Denglisch, Franglais or similar neologisms.
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Pseudo-anglicisms in various languages
General
- In Italian and French footing means "jogging", and sig is used in cartoons to denote a sigh.
- A smoking in many European languages is not a smoking jacket in the Edwardian sense, but means a "dinner-jacket" or "tuxedo".
- The word string in many European languages (such as Dutch, German, French and Russian) refers exclusively to a G-string.
Chinese
- BB call - pager
- DM - flyer, brochure, junk mail (from "direct mail")
- kou - to photocopy (from the first syllable in "copy")
- morning call - wake-up call (in a hotel)
Danish
- Babylift (IPA: [b̥eɪb̥ilifd̥]) — "carrycot".
- A bøfsandwich (IPA: [b̥ø:fsɑnʋitɕ]) is not a beef sandwich, but a beef patty on a bun.
- Drink (IPA: [d̥ʁeŋg̊]) only means an alcoholic drink containing spirits (it is mainly used in the sense of cocktails).
Dutch
- Beamer (also German) — video projector
- Camping (also French, Italian and Russian) — campsite
- Coffeeshop — a store selling cannabis (or, colloquially, other psychedelic drugs).
- Drugs refers exclusively to narcotics (not to medicines in general).
- The word flat is only used to refer to a block of flats. What the British call "flat" is called appartement in Dutch.
- Happy end (also German and Russian) — happy ending
- Oldtimer (also German) — vintage car
- Playbacken (the noun playback being also used in also French) — lip-synching [a song].
- Songtekst ("tekst" being a native Dutch word) (also German) — 'lyrics'
- Tax-free shop — duty-free shop.
- Topfit (also German) — perfectly physically fit
French
- Auto-stop (also in Italian, Russian, Romanian)) — Hitchhiking
- Baby Foot — Table football
- Baskets (also in Romanian)— sneakers, trainers (basketball shoes).
- Une (voiture) Break — a station wagon (American), an estate car (English)
- Caddy — shopping trolley
- Camping (also in Dutch, Italian, Russian, Romanian ) — campsite
- Camping-car — Campervan or "recreational vehicle" (also used in Japanese).
- The noun catch refers to professional wrestling. It is also used occasionally in Italian, even though it is often considered to be a little old-fashioned.
- Chamallow — Marshmallow
- Flipper (also German and Italian) — Pinball Machine
- Foot — Football (soccer)
- In (also native Dutch and Italian) — fashionable
- Jogging — Tracksuit (jogging suit)
- Lifting (also in Italian and Romanian)— facelift
- Parking (also in Russian) — parking lot (car park)
- People — celebs (sometimes spelt pipeuls)
- Playback (also in Italian; the verb playbacken being also used in Dutch) - lip-synch
- Pom Pom girl — cheerleader
- Relooking - makeover
- Shampooing – shampoo
- Talkie-walkie — walkie-talkie
- Tennisman - Tennis player
German
- Backshop - a bakeshop (in fact a germanization of the English word since baking means backen in German)
- Beamer (also Dutch) — video projector
- Beauty Farm — spa
- Bodybag — backpack (ironically, English has imported the German word Rucksack)
- Checken — understand, realize
- Catchen — professional wrestling (from "catch wrestling")
- DJane — female DJ
- Dressman — (male) model
- Ego-Shooter — first-person shooter
- Flipper (also French and Italian) — pinball machine
- Foto-shooting — photo session
- Funeralmaster — undertaker
- Funsport — a sport primarily practised in leisure time and for fun
- Handy — mobile phone
- Happy-End (also Dutch) — happy ending
- Horrortrip — bad trip (psychedelic crisis)
- Highboard — table-high cupboard
- Inliner — Rollers (shoes) (not strictly a pseudo-anglicism as the sport is also called 'inline skating' in English)
- Logical — riddle/puzzle to be solved by logical thought
- Longseller — long-term (best)seller
- Oldtimer (also Dutch) — vintage car
- Pullunder — sweater vest
- Puzzle - jigsaw puzzle
- Rocker — biker
- Sexdate — Hookup (casual sex)
- Shooting Star — successful newcomer
- Smoking - black tie
- Songtext ("Text" being a native German word) (also Dutch) — 'lyrics'
- Showmaster — show host
- Talkmaster — talk show host
- top-fit (also Dutch) — perfectly physically fit
- Twen — anyone who is in his/her twenties, or the age itself
Hungarian
Italian
- Auto-stop (also in French, Russian, Romanian and Polish)) — Hitchhiking
- Camper — Campervan or "recreational vehicle"
- Camping (also in Dutch, French, Russian, Romanian ) — campsite
- The noun catch refers to professional wrestling even though it is often considered to be a little old-fashioned.
- Charleston - Hi-hat
- Flipper (also in French and German) — Pinball Machine
- In (also native Dutch and French) — fashionable
- Lifting (also in French and Romanian)— facelift
- Playback (also in French; the verb playbacken being also used in Dutch) - lip-synch
- Pullman — Coach
- Telefilm - TV series
Japanese
- Desk (デスク desuku?) — title for a person in office
- Famicom (ファミコン famikon?) — video game, portmanteau of "family" and "computer"
- Mansion (マンション manshon?) — a condominium apartment
- Okushon (億ション?) — luxury apartment (a pun in comparison with "mansion", since the Japanese oku means 108 compared to man which is 104)
- Smart (スマート sumaato?) — slim or skinny
Russian
- Autostop (автостоп) — Hitchhiking
- Biker (байкер) — a member of a Motorcycle club rather than merely a motorcyclist
- Camping (кемпинг) (also Dutch French) — campsite
- Clipmaker (клипмейкер) — music video director
- Course (курс) — (among other meanings) year in the university
- Face control (фейс-контроль) — checking whether a person looks appropriate (a common practice at Russian night clubs)
- Killer (киллер) — "hitman" or "hired assassin"
- Master (мастер) — 1) person who repairs something; 2) Wizard (software)
- Parking (паркинг) — parking lot (car park)
- Safing (сейфинг) — providing safe deposit boxes
Spanish
- autostop in Spain means hitchhiking
- body is a leotard
- fitness is fitness training as a kind of gymnastics.
- footing in Spain means jogging
- panty or panti means "pantyhose".
- slip means briefs
- snow is an abbreviation for "snowboard" as a sport. The board can be called tabla de snow.
Swedish
- Trafficking refers primarily to trafficking in human beings or sex trafficking, and not to smuggling in general.
- The word walkman is usually replaced with "freestyle" (despite the fact that the word does not fit particularly well with Swedish phonotactics or grammar; actually, freestyle was the name chosen for marketing purposes in Sweden)
Words adapted from languages other than English
Adopted and adapted words from many original languages probably find a home in all host languages. Terms that cover these in German or French might be called "pseudo-Germanisms" and "pseudo-Gallicisms".
Pseudo-Germanisms
Examples of German words in English which have adapted:
- Blitz — ("The Blitz") the sustained attack by the German Luftwaffe from 1940 to 1941 which began after the Battle of Britain. It was adapted from "Blitzkrieg" (literally "lightning war", meaning sudden, quick war), the sudden and overwhelming attack on many smaller European countries and their defeat by the Wehrmacht. "Blitz" (German for "bolt of lightning") has never been used in actual German in its aerial-war aspect and became an entirely new usage in English during World War II. The word has also been adopted by American football to describe a defensive play when linebackers and/or defensive backs move close to the line of scrimmage in an attempt to overwhelm the quarterback. Also Blitz chess is a game of chess where each side is given very little time to make all of their moves.
- (to) strafe — in its sense of "to machine-gun troop assemblies and columns from the air", became a new adaptation during World War I, of the German word strafen — to punish. In recent years "strafe" has referred specifically to the horizontal yawing motion of an airplane raking an area with machine-gun fire, and is now also used to mean "to move sideways while looking forward", so that many first-person shooter computer games have "strafe" keys.
- Mox Nix - from German idiom "macht nichts". Often used by U.S. servicemen to mean "whatever" or "it doesn't matter".[1]
Other German-sounding, or German-inspired words in English include hock for a German white wine, stein for a beer mug, and certain meats referred to as schnitzel. Hock derives from Hochheim in Germany, stein (literally just "stone") would have to be translated as Bierseidel, Maßkrug or Bierkrug, but ultimately goes back to Steinkrug, a drinking vessel made of "stoneware". And "schnitzel" is a word meaning a "cutlet," usually of pork or veal. An example in Russian is "парикмахер" (parikmakher), a barber or hairdresser. This derives from the German Perück(en)macher (equivalent to (peri) wig maker or peruke maker in English), derived in turn from the Italian parrucca, via the French perruque. Thus a wig-maker of centuries ago has been changed to a hairdresser in a modern language.
Pseudo-Gallicisms
Several such French expressions have found a home in English. The first continued in its adopted language in its original obsolete form centuries after it had changed its morpheme in national French:
- double entendre — still used in English long after it had changed to "double entente" or "double sens" in France, and ironically has itself two meanings, one of which is of a sexually dubious nature. This might be classed a kind of "pseudo-Gallicism".
- bon viveur — the second word is not used in French as such, while in English it often takes the place of a fashionable man, a sophisticate, a man used to elegant ways, a man-about-town, in fact a bon vivant. In French a viveur is a rake or debauchee; bon does not come into it.
The French bon vivant is the usage for an epicure, a person who enjoys good food. Bonne vivante is not used. - Rendez-vous — merely means "meeting" or "appointment" in French, but in English has taken on other overtones. Connotations such as secretiveness have crept into the English version, which is sometimes used as a verb. It has also come to mean a particular place where people of a certain type, such as tourists or people who originate from a certain locality, may meet. In recent years, both the verb and the noun have taken on the additional meaning of a location where two spacecraft are brought together for a limited period, usually for docking or retrieval.
- Portmanteau words are called mot-valises in French.
Pseudo-Spanish
Pseudo-Spanish is different from simply bad Spanish in that it has some quite resilient and standardised examples in at least the American English. Examples include "no problemo" and "exactamundo". New words may be generated by using the Spanish articles "el" and "la" while adding "o" or "a" to the ends of standard English words ("Put it on el desko"). In addition, some people may pronounce valid Spanish words with a deliberately non-Spanish accent (e.g. the phrase 'hasta la vista' pronounced [hæstə lə vɪstə] so that the words rhyme with "passed a" and "kissed a" rather than [ɑstə lɑ vistə] which is closer to the Spanish [ˈasta la ˈβista]). In addition, English grammatical structures may be used; for example, placing subject pronouns such as "yo" before verbs, where Spanish does not generally require them (see pro drop language).
Notes
- ^ The Word Detective, word-detective.com, June 7, 2007, <http://www.word-detective.com/060704.html>. Retrieved on 2007-12-25
References
Japanese English: Language And The Culture Contact, by James Stanlaw, Hong Kong University Press, 2004. "Wasei eigo: English ‘loanwords' coined in Japan," by Laura Miller, in The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright, edited by Jane Hill, P.J. Mistry and Lyle Campbell, Mouton/De Gruyter: The Hague, pp. 123–139, 1997.
- Geoff Parkes and Alan Cornell (1992), 'NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates', National Textbook Company, NTC Publishing Group.
