Pseudo-anglicism

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 portmanteau words, combining elements of multiple English words to create a new word that appears to be English but is unrecognisable to a native speaker of English. 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.

Pseudo-anglicisms in various languages

Multiple languages

• Air-Condition (German, Croatian, Greek) — air conditioning
• Apart (Korean 아파트, Japanese アパート) - Apartment
• Autostop or stop (Croatian, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Bulgarian автостоп, Spanish, Turkish) — hitchhiking
• Ball Pen (Korean 볼펜, Japanese ボールペン) — ball point pen
• Basket (Arabic, Spanish, Turkish, French, Italian, Indonesian, Greek) — Basketball
• Baskets (French, Romanian) — sneakers, trainers (basketball shoes)
• Beamer (Dutch, German, Romanian) — video projector, primarily digital
• Beauty farm (Dutch, German, Italian) — spa
• Body (for dancing) (Italian, Romanian) — leotard
• Body (for infants) (Italian, French, Polish, Spanish) — infant bodysuit
• Box (for toddlers) (Dutch, Italian) — playpen
• Box (for vehicles) (French, Italian) — garage
• Break (French, Romanian brec) — a station wagon (American English) or estate car (British English) - cf. shooting brake
• Camping (Croatian, Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian кемпинг, Spanish) — campsite
• Camping-car (French, Japanese キャンピングカー) — Campervan or "recreational vehicle"
• Car (French, Swiss German) — coach, tour bus or inter-city bus
• Catch (French; now considered old-fashioned in Italian) — professional wrestling
• Classic music (Korean 클래식 음악, Japanese クラシック音楽, Turkish) - Classical music
• Coffee (Some Arabic dialects) - Café
• Cornflakes (Arabic) - Any breakfast cereal
• Cunning (Korean 커닝, Japanese カンニング) - Cheating
• Dancing (Flemish, French, Italian) — dance hall or dancing-house or nightclub
• Discount (Diskont) (Croatian, Polish Dyskont, Serbian) — a store
• Feeling (Italian, French) — personal chemistry, common bond
• Fitness (Brazilian Portuguese, Croatian, Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian фитнес, Spanish, Turkish) — fitness training as a kind of gymnastics
• Flipper (Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian; Croatian fliper, Polish) — pinball machine
• Footing (French, Italian, Spanish) — jogging
• Fotoshooting (German, Romanian) — photo session
• Fotoshop (Brazilian Portuguese, Croatian), fotosop (Hungarian) — a manipulated photo (from the name of Adobe Photoshop)
• Full (Croatian, Serbian ful, Turkish) — Full house (in poker)
• Handphone (Filipino languages, Indonesian, Korean 핸드폰) — a mobile phone
• Happy end (Brazilian Portuguese, Croatian, Dutch, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Korean 해피엔드, Japanese ハッピーエンド, Polish, Romanian, Russian хэппи-энд) — happy ending
• Hometrainer (German, Dutch) — exercise bicycle or other low-level consumer fitness machine
• IC (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) - interchange
• Jolly (Italian, Romanian) — joker or wild card
• Killer (Croatian, Italian, Polish, Russian киллер) — hitman, contract killer
• K-Way (Italian, French) — Windbreaker
• Lifting (Brazilian Portuguese, Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Swiss German) — facelift'
• Limousine or Limousine bus (Korean 리무진 버스, Japanese リムジンバス, Turkish) - airport shuttle
• Limousine (Some Arabic dialects) - taxi
• Living (French, Romanian, Flemish, Spanish) — living room or set of living room furniture
• Luna park (Greek, Italian, Polish, Turkish) — funfair
• Mail (Croatian, French, Norwegian, Spanish) — electronic mail or e-mail
• Marketing (Arbic, Croatian, Polish, Serbian, Spanish) — advertising
• Mobbing (German, Croatian, Norwegian, Polish) — bullying
• Montgomery (Greek, Italian) — duffel coat
• MV (Chinese, Korean) — music video
• Oldtimer — (Dutch, German, Croatian) — vintage car (or bike or aircraft or boat)
• Open space (French, Polish, Romanian) — Open plan office
• Pants (Japanese パンツ) - Underwear (Although this is how the word is used in British English.)
• Panty or panti (Dutch, Spanish) — pantyhose
• Parking (Arabic, Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Polish, Russian паркинг, Spanish, Swiss German, Flemish) — parking lot / car park
• Peeling (Romanian, Russian пилинг, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish) — facial or body scrub
• Pickup (Dutch, Greek) — turntable
• Playback (Arabic, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Spanish, Turkish) — lip sync (in songs) / Lip-synching in music
• Poker (Croatian, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian) — either the game or four of a kind
• Pressing (Italian, Polish, Swiss German) — forcing (in sport)
• Pullman (Greek, Italian) — motor coach, tour or inter-city bus, not a railway vehicle
• Puzzle (Arabic, Croatian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian паззл, Turkish) — jigsaw puzzle (rather than puzzle in general)
• Reality (Croatian, Greek, Italian) — reality show
• Recordman (French, Italian, Greek, Romanian) — record holder in sports
• Scotch (French, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian скотч) a clear adhesive tape of any brand
• Service (Korean 서비스, Japanese サービス) — free, complimentary, from 'self service'
• Sharp pencil (Korean 샤프펜슬, Japanese シャープペンシル) — a mechanical pencil.
• Skilift (Croatian, Italian) — platter lift
• Slip (Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Turkish) — briefs
• Smoking (Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian smoching, Russian смокинг, Swedish, Turkish, Spanish esmoquin) — a dinner jacket or tuxedo, rather than a smoking jacket in the Edwardian sense
• Speaker (French, Italian, Polish spiker; Croatian spiker, Turkish) — announcer
• String (Dutch, French, German, Greek, Polish, Russian стринги, Turkish) — G-string
• Strip (Croatian, Dutch, Serbian) — comics, comic book or comic strip
• Telefilm (Croatian, Italian) — filmed TV series
• Ticket Restaurant (French, Italian) — meal ticket or Luncheon Voucher
• Toast (Croatian, Greek, Italian, Polish tost, Turkish) — toasted sandwich
• Topfit (Dutch, German) — perfectly physically fit
• Training (Hungarian tréning, Hebrew טריינינג, Romanian trening) — tracksuit
• Transistor (Greek), tranzistor (Croatian) — portable radio
• Trench (French, Italian) — trench coat
• Videoclip (Arabic, Croatian, Greek, Polish wideoklip, Portuguese, Romanian) — music video
• Volley (Arabic, French, Greek, Italian) — volleyball
• Wellness (Croatian, Hungarian) — feeling well by expensive means, especially in a chic hotel near a spa

Chinese

• ABC — American-born Chinese, also CBC = Canadian-born Chinese, BBC = British-born Chinese, etc.
• BB call — pager
• DM — flyer, brochure, junk mail (from "direct mail")
• MIT — Made in Taiwan
• VC — Vitamin C

Croatian

• Biftek - beef steak
• Body — Bodysuit
• Dres — sports uniform, kit

Danish

• Babylift ([beɪ̯bilifd]) — baby transport/carrycot
• Basket — basketball
• Butterfly — a bow tie
• Fitness — fitness training
• Homepage — a website
• Reality — a reality TV show
• Roastbeef — a cut of beef located roughly at the short loin (US) or sirloin (UK)
• Timemanager — a calendar or notebook in which you write down appointments (from the registered trademark Time Manager)
• Toast — toasted sandwich
• Volley — volleyball
• mail — email

Dutch

• Airco — air conditioning
• Beamer — a digital video projector
• Boiler — a water heater and not a central heating boiler
• Box — a baby playpen
• Coffeeshop — a store selling cannabis (or, colloquially, other psychedelic drugs)
• Dumpstore — an army surplus store
• Evergreen — an enduringly popular song
• Fitness (also in many other European languages) — fitness training as a kind of gymnastics; also, a place for fitness training
• Junk — a drug addict (in English that would be Junkie)
• (Koffie)pad — (coffee) pod
• Living (in Flemish Dutch) — living room
• Loverboy — a pimp who grooms (often very young) women to fall in love with him, in order to force them into prostitution.
• Occasion — bargain (especially a car sold at a favourable price), or even: second-hand car. Originally a French loanword with the meaning of "bargain" and pronounced as in French, it is now often pronounced as in English
• Oldtimer — a classic or obsolete car
• Pocket — paperback book
• Sheets — transparencies or computer presentation slides
• Shovel — a loader
• Songtext — lyrics
• Touringcar — refers to a Coach (vehicle) and not a Touring car, which is both an automobile body shape and classification of racing car.

Filipino languages

Main article: Philippine English

• Bad shot – To get on someone's bad side or to make a bad impression.
• Bad trip – An unfortunate situation. May mean "bummer".
• Bold – May refer to nudity
• Bold movie – A movie with nude or sexually-explicit scenes
• Chancing – To make a sexual advance
• C.R. (Comfort Room) – Toilet, bathroom
• Gimmick or Gimik – A night out with friends. Also, any offering during evening hours by clubs, bars and restaurants to lure customers in.
• Slang – May refer to strong foreign accents and pronunciation. Also occurs in Malay.

Finnish

• College — sweater/jumper

French

• Baby-foot — table football
• Baskets — sports shoes
• Blue-jean — jeans, denims, denim (the material)
• Box — internet access devices, following the trend of brand naming initiated with Free Telecom's "Freebox", then imitated by others (Livebox, Neufbox...)
• Brushing — blow dry
• Building - skyscraper
• Caddie ([kaˈdi]) — shopping trolley, refers to the brand Caddie.
• Dressing — dressing room
• Fashion — as an adjective rather than a noun
• Foot — Football (soccer) (In Canadian French, this would refer to Canadian football, or sometimes in context to American football. Association football is le soccer^{[citation needed]}.)
• Forcing as in faire le forcing — to pressure
• de grand standing — high class (of property), luxury (flat, apartment)
• Jogging — Tracksuit (jogging suit)
• Just (adj.) ([dʒœst]) — 'C'était just !' = tight, as in we "just" barely made it, it was a tight squeeze.
• Mailing (m) - direct mail advertising, email marketing (campaign)
• Parking (m) - car park
• Paper board — flip chart
• People (sometimes spelt pipeuls, pipoles) — celebs, also used as adjective (ex. "Il est très people"), refers to the US magazine People
• Planning (m) - schedule, to-do list
• Pressing — dry cleaning shop
• Pull — pullover, sweater
• Recordman, recordwoman — record holder in sports
• Relooking — makeover (also: relooker — give a makeover to)
• Rugbyman — rugby player
• Self — self-service restaurant
• Sig (in cartoons) — sigh
• Speaker or Speakerine — announcer (radio, TV, railway etc.)
• Sweat (m) — sweater
• Tennisman — tennis player
• Top (adj.) — brilliant, great
• Warning(s) (m) - (car) hazard-lights
• Zapping (m) - (TV) channel-surfing, channel-hopping
• Zoning — industrial estate

German

Main article: Denglisch

• Beamer — video projector
• Black Music (also in French) — music in the hip-hop/rap genre^{[citation needed]}
• Body Bag — shoulder bag. The bag which is slung across the midriff in English is called cross-body bag. In Germany, Body Bag is a registered trademark.
• Box — High fidelity loudspeaker
• Castingshow — talent search television series
• Dressman — male model
• Drive In — drive-thru restaurant
• Ego-Shooter — first-person shooter (derived from Latin "Ego" = "I")
• Funsport — a sport primarily practised in leisure time and for fun
• Handy — mobile phone
• Happy End — happy ending
• Highboard — a table-high cupboard
• Homepage — website
• Horrortrip — bad trip
• Inboard-Kamera — onboard camera
• Inliner — inline skates (shoes)
• Kicker — table football ("foosball" in American English, a variation on the German word "Fußball" (football))
• Leader(innen)board — provisional ranking; in English leader board is only used in professional golf and for a collection of important rules and statements of a Christian sect^{[citation needed]}
• Lifting — taking the ski lift uphill. Common term in Kühtai region in Austria
• Logical — riddle/puzzle to be solved by logical thought^{[citation needed]}
• Longseller — long-term (best)seller^{[citation needed]}
• Messie — a "pack rat", a person engaging in compulsive hoarding
• Musicbox — jukebox
• Oldtimer — vintage car
• Pocketbook — paperback
• Public Viewing — outdoor screening
• Pullunder, often Pollunder or Polunder — sweater vest
• Punky — a punk
• Roastbeef - a cut of beef located roughly at the short loin (US) or sirloin (UK)
• Rowdy — thug, hooligan
• Shootingstar — successful newcomer (sports, music, literature, business, politics...)
• Shorty — shorts
• Slipper — lace-less shoes
• Showmaster — show host
• Talkmaster — talk show host
• Trainings- — in compound terms such as Trainingsanzug, -hose, and -jacke for tracksuit, - trousers, and - top
• Twen — a person in his or her twenties, or the time period of one's twenties

Greek

• Barwoman — barmaid
• Gallup opinion poll
• Jean — denim
• Trolley — trolleybus

Hungarian

• Drill — three of a kind in poker.
• Farmer means "denim" as well as "(blue) jeans" made of denim

Indonesian

• Mini Market - Convenience store
• Tip-Ex - correction pen

Israeli Hebrew

• Back-Axe (בק-אקס) - rear axle
• Coacher (קואוצ'ר) - practitioner of life-coaching, a coach.
• Front Back-Axe (פרונט בק-אקס) - front axle
• Golf (גולף) — turtleneck sweater/jersey
• Nylon (ניילון) - any form of flexible plastic
• Patent (patent פטנט) - an improvisation/innovation
• Puncture (פנצ'ר) - any mishap causing a delay
• Talkback (tokbek טוקבק) - A comment on a blog or a internet news site

Italian

• Autogrill ([ˈaʊtoɡrɪl]) — motorway snack bar (used for any brand, not only for Autogrill chain)
• Baby killer — juvenile murderer
• Bar — café (the English "bar" is called "pub" in Italy)
• Beauty case or Beauty — vanity bag
• Body rental — temporary staffing firm
• Box (in motorsports) — place on a race track where pit stops are conducted
• Box doccia — shower cubicle
• Cargo — cargo boat
• Charleston (instrument) — Hi-hat
• Custom — custom motorcycle
• Fiction — TV miniseries
• Golf — sweater/jumper
• Hostess — female flight attendant, stewardess
• Mister (in football) — coach
• Night — nightclub
• Sexy shop — sex shop
• Stage (Italian pronunciation: [staʒ] from French stage "internship", but also [steidʒ] via erroneous connection to the English stage) — internship
• Ticket — cost associated to a service provided by national health care system
• Tight — morning suit
• Trolley — trolley case
• Tutor or Safety tutor — SPECS (speed camera)
• Water ([ˈvater]) — water closet

Japanese

Main article: Wasei-eigo

• Desk (デスク, desuku) — title for a person in office
• Famicon (ファミコン, famikon) — video game, portmanteau of "family" and "computer"
• Love hotel (ラブホテル, rabuhoteru) — a type of short-stay hotel
• OL or Office Lady (オフィスレディー, ofisuredī) — a female office worker
• Lolicon (ロリコン, rorikon) - paedophile, portmanteau of "lolita" and "complex"
• Mansion (マンション, manshon) — a condominium apartment
• Smart (スマート, sumaato) — slim or skinny
• Style (スタイル, sutairu) — a woman's figure (particularly if slim or skinny)

Korean

Main article: Konglish

• Apart (아파트) — this word is used to mean not only individual suites, but "apartment building" or "apartment complex"
• Fighting (파이팅) — a Korean cheer that can roughly be translated as "Victory!" but can also be used as a word of encouragement (a la "Courage!")
• Note (노트) - a notebook
• Officetel (오피스텔) — this word is a portmanteau of "office" and "hotel" and means office and hotel combined
• One room (원룸) — a bachelor-style studio apartment
• One shot (원샷) — a form of toast, roughly equivalent to "bottoms up". It challenges the drinker to finish his drink in one gulp
• Skin scuba (스킨스쿠버) — scuba-diving

Polish

• Dress (dres, dresy) — tracksuit; sometimes also chav(s)
• Adidas (adidas, adidasy) — any sports shoes;

Portuguese

• Agroboy — (Brazilian Portuguese) A non-urban Brazilian playboy or yuppie, generally with its wealth earned by agricultural businesses
• Cooper — To jog
• Fashion — (Brazilian Portuguese) Slang for a cool fashion style. Used mainly in relation to female fashion styles (or that of males in a jocose way). Example: Ela está muito fashion agora! (meaning "she is so cool now [with this makeover]!")
• Funk — A musical genre from Rio de Janeiro, local spin-off from Miami Bass, completely unrelated to American funk music
• Hipster — (Brazilian Portuguese) Slang for either the correct English usage (scenesters of underground and indie music scenes) or contemporary hippies
• Night — (Brazilian Portuguese) Actually referring to nightlife, particularly dating
• Novo look — a makeover (hair, clothing, makeup, etc.)
• Outdoor — Billboard, using the English adjective as a noun
• Playboy — (Brazilian Portuguese) While in first it had the same usage as in English, from the 1990s to the 2010s it changed its meaning to a local version of yuppie. Stereotypes of the Brazilian playboys include being classist, womanizer and sexist, at least way more than their yuppie counterparts from more developed nations, which in turn is result of social anxieties of the poor and the lower middle class against the upper middle and upper classes, or being great seekers of social status and influence. They also, contrary to yuppies, do not fashionize intellectuality, and can or can not be socially liberal (social divisions between liberals and conservatives, specially in the upper classes, makes much less sense in Brazil)
• Shopping — Shopping mall, using the English gerund as a noun
• Show — Concert, particularly a pop music concert ("concerto" is used mainly for classical music, nevertheless it is the standard usage in European Portuguese for all kinds of concert and also used in Brazilian Portuguese by language purists)
• Style — (Brazilian Portuguese) Slang for someone whose fashion, or for the said fashion in itself, is deemed as innovative, cool or unique. Example: Deborah e Giovanni ficam tão style de calças skinny, óculos escuros e franja! (meaning "Deborah and Giovanni became so cool wearing skinny jeans and dark glasses, and cutting the hair in bangs!")
• Tuning — Car tuning
• Videogame — (Brazilian Portuguese) Game console, although the term "console" is also used, the videogames themselves are simply called "games", "jogos" (the standard translation for "game") or less ambiguously "jogos de videogame" (console games)

Romanian

• Recordman — record holder in sports (feminine is recordmană)
• Tenisman — tennis player (feminine is tenismană)

Russian

• Biker (байкер) — a member of a Motorcycle club rather than merely a motorcyclist
• Clip (клип) — music video
• Face control (фейс-контроль) — checking whether a person looks appropriate (a common practice at Russian night clubs)
• Killer (киллер) — a hitman or assassin
• Kreativ (креатив) — inventiveness, creativity; the results of creative work
• Player (плеер, плейер) - Walkman
• Safing (сейфинг) — providing safe deposit boxes
• Shop-tour (шоп-тур) — an organized tour to a foreign country for shopping

Serbian

• Drugstore (Dragstor) - a corner store that is open in evenings or overnight. They do not offer pharmacy services.
• Goalman (Golman) - Goalkeeper
• Insert — Movie clip
• Recorder (Rekorder) – record holder (in sports)
• Spot — Music video

Spanish

• Bistec - beef steak
• Body – bodice
• Boxer — boxer shorts
• Footing – jogging
• Heavy — slang term for that means awesome, excellent, great, etc. This word is used in the same way English speakers use the slang term "Cool". It also means "metalhead". Most likely form British slang word 'Heavy' meaning 'Cool'
• Inbox — email message
• Nuevo look — a makeover (hair, clothing, makeup etc.)
• Planning — plan, program
• Play, Hipermegaplay (in Colombia) — Used in the same way American English speakers would use the slang term "Cool"
• Puenting (from puente, bridge) — a sport that involves jumping from a bridge. It is similar to bungee jumping except for the fact that the cord is non-elastic and that the jump ends in a pendulum-like movement.
• Round Point (in Colombia) — Roundabout
• Snow — an abbreviation for "snowboard" as sport. The board is called tabla de snow
• Web — website

Swedish

• Body - an undershirt for females
• Cab - a convertible car.
• Dollargrin - 1950s American car with a huge glittering front grill.
• Fiction - used for the literary category only. Fiction in a general sense is fiktion or påhitt.
• Hockey - Icehockey (other varieties of hockey are virtually unknown in Sweden).
• Pocketbok - paperback book (mix of English and Swedish spelling)
• Walkman (as in a small portable cassette player) 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.
• Wrestling refers only to the staged wrestling shows on TV. The genuine sport is called brottning.

Thai

• Check-bin - A combination of the US English "check" and the British English "bill" (adapted to Thai pronunciation), meaning the bill presented in a restaurant or bar.
• Hi-so - High Society describing someone who insists on designer labels

Turkish

• Body – bodybuilding
• Flirt - generally used as dating
• Cola (derived from Coca-Cola) – refers to any soft drink

Vietnamese

• Camera (ca mê ra) - camcorder
• Dollar (đô la) - explicitly US dollar
• Film (phim) - refers to both movies and soap opera
• Photo (phô tô) - photocopy
• Remote (rờ mốt) - remote control - remote is a common term in Australian English
• Sex (sét) - wearing revealing clothes that make the wearer appear lustful
• Style (xì tin) - appearing teenage, active, playful and modern
• Vest (vét) - Western suit in clothing

Yiddish

• cherry lights (טשערי לייץ) - red headlights
• payday (פּיידיי) - salary/payment

See also

• Anglicism
• Barbarism
• Calque
• Denglisch
• False friends
• Language transfer
• Loanword
• List of pseudo-German words adapted to English
• List of pseudo-French words adapted to English
• Phono-semantic matching

Sources

• James Stanlaw 2004, Japanese English: Language And The Culture Contact, Hong Kong University Press.
• Laura Miller 1997, "Wasei eigo: English ‘loanwords' coined in Japan" 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.
• Geoff Parkes and Alan Cornell 1992, 'NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates', National Textbook Company, NTC Publishing Group.
• Ghil'ad Zuckermann 2003, ‘‘Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew’’, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change, Series editor: Charles Jones). ISBN 1-4039-1723-X.

External links

• Examples of Japanese pseudo-anglicisms