Talk:Pseudo-anglicism

Relation to loanwords

The article has not yet (August 12, 2005) discussed the relationship between pseudo-Anglicisms and other loanwords, or their relationship with false friends, so could I suggest some points?

The pseudo-word phenomenon seems to be a special case of the loanword. Most loanwords undergo some immediate slight semantic change when transferred to the new language, and further semantic drift may then follow over long subsequent periods, so it is not remarkable that the resulting cognates differ in meaning. But a pseudo-word or spurious loanword does not seem to have ever existed lexically in the supposed language of departure, though it is perceived as a borrowing in the receiving language. Whether we call them cod, pseudo, bogus, or faux, these words are entirely constructed in the foreign-language community.

The false friend on the other hand is a specialized phenomenon only known to bilingual people: it is a practical obstacle encountered in translation and language-learning. While false friends may be caused by borrowing, they may also be an effect of coincidence or of divergent lexical development. False friends or false cognates are issues to be dealt with in bilingualism, but need not be a topic in a discussion of language origins: the reference to Parkes and Cornell's book does not seem relevant to the present article.

Cod loanwords and reshaped loanwords (see below) are well known to monolingual speakers, not just bilingual ones. They are one of the components of Franglais, Denglisch, Engrish and so on, but it ought to be pointed out that these jargons also contain many other loanwords that have been only little modified.

What makes a pseudo-Anglicism peculiar is that its users believe, from its style and spelling, that it comes from English, but it is unintelligible to English-speakers because of a shift in lexical context. Mobbing(de) and standing(fr) are pseudo-Anglicisms because of their "ing" suffix and because English monolinguals usually cannot guess what they mean, but Tuning(de) and clearing(fr) have clear points of contact in English.

Unless we use the concept of the pseudo-Anglicism strictly, it is hard to see how it is different from any ordinary loanword.

Strafe is clearly a pseudo-Germanism, but Blitz has a mixture of features (borrowing with the meaning intact, followed by shortening) and is not such a clear case. Karaoke should be removed from this article (its origin as a word is explained under the karaoke headword). Bon viveur is indeed a pseudo-Gallicism, but an extremely obscure one. I doubt that the divergent development of double-entendre and rendezvous qualify them to by called pseudo-Gallicisms. At the time of transmission they were simple loanwords. Pathetic may be a false friend for English learners of Greek (just as pathetisch (overly dramatic) is for English learners of German), but it was correctly transmitted and does not seem to me to be a pseudo-Hellenism. The original meaning in English (S.O.D.: earliest use 1598) was stirring or moving but it then underwent semantic drift.

Could I suggest renaming the article with a suitable head-word that embraces all the instances, i.e. pseudo-Anglicisms, pseudo-Germanisms, pseudo-Gallicisms and so on? One customary term is "cod", which means humorously preposterous. It is applied to words and explanations of words. Cod etymology is a variety of folk etymology that is so outrageous that it appears (or is known) to be invented. More broadly, there is a term cod science. To cod means to hoax (Chambers 20th Century Dictionary). Cod loanword? Spurious loanword? Are there any other suggestions for a term?

This should not be confused with reshaped loanwords, which are altered in transmission but are still intelligible in the lender language. In German usage, standing ovations(de) in the singular ends with an S (in English, only plural ovations have an S). In English, deutschmark(en) (uncapitalized, no space, no inflective e) is part of educated usage, but is wrong from a German point of view. The French shake-hand swaps the word order of handshake. In none of these cases has the lexical context changed.

Nor should they be confused with inept calques, which appear to have been invented by German speakers but have now passed into the English language. Examples: economics ministry (de: Wirtschaftsministerium, an economy ministry in Germany) or traffic calming (de: Verkehrsberühingung, obstacles placed on roads to deter traffic and reduce speeds). --JB Piggin 21:27, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, JB, I certainly see your point that there should be a keyword that meets all the pseudo's, be it -Anglicism, -Germanism, -Gallicism, or any other, and it is a fine point that needs thinking about.

However, Parkes adn Cornell have indeed either created the term 'pseudo -Anglicism or certainly used it in describing the words Dressman, Talkmaster, Twen, Chesterkäse for "processed cheddar cheese", to name a few.

You mention the word Blitz "as having a mixture of features (borrowing with the meaning intact...)". I fear no, this is not so. The word means 'lightning' or 'flash' as in photography, and was used by the Germans in a particular meaning in relation to war only, namely that of "lightning war", that of overrunning a number of smaller or weaker countries. It was never, at any time, used to refer to air-war, but was picked up as an expression for the "destruction of inner cities" by the British population generally and used in that sense only. Fluent German speaker would have picked up on the 'lightning war' meaning and then only if they were able to lay their hands on German papers. The British quality press, would have certainly featured the 'lightning war' translation at some time or other, but that certainly did not reflect on the popular conception of the phrase.

Dieter Simon 00:19, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Mr 131.183.81.100. When you ultimately come out into the open with some kind of name I might even take your point. Actually I hadn't finished and what you were saying was in the nature of typos still to be edited.

Dieter Simon 01:02 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

Is this term only used in reference to German? The same thing happens many other languages, e.g. Engrish. -- Stephen Gilbert 03:17 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, there are terms similar which probably apply to all languages where there are words which have been taken over, adapted to new usage in the host language and probably now mean different things. I am about to add "pseudo-Germanism" and "pseudo-gallicism", terms which I haven't been able to find, which however ought to exist to cover the problem. Dieter Simon 21:41 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

...If the system weren't so slow... Dieter Simon 21:46 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm a little confused as to why this article only introduces the phenomenon as occuring to German. The word "smoking", for example, also exists in French, and they also have the word "footing" to describe what I believe is the sport of "jogging" or "runing". soulpatch

No need to be confused. You are absolutely right, as I indicated this probably occurs in all languages. Why don't you input your examples in the relevant language paras, the more examples the better.--Dieter Simon 00:36 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

Your turn, Soulpatch, do include your "smoking", "footing", "jogging" and "running". But are they actually pseudo-anglicisms? In other words these words have changed in meaning or morphology in French?--Dieter Simon 22:50 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

I am unable to log in on the article "Pseudo-anglicism", but the "Discuss this page" opens straightaway with my user name. How can I get round this little problem?--Dieter Simon 00:39 Feb 15, 2003 (UTC)

Note: the below discussion is copied from what is now the Talk:Pseudo-Anglicism (temp) page after it was moved without its history & talk.

Just a query, Jacquerie, what has happened to the rest of the page history? Is there any reason why it should have disappeared? Would appreciate if you could throw some light on this. Thanks --Dieter Simon 21:53 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

looks to be under Pseudo-anglicism (lowercase a). - Hephaestos 21:56 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Many thanks, Hephaestos, I should have realised --Dieter Simon 22:02 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Jacquerie27 ought to have moved it instead of copying it and redirecting the other. I'm going to move this one to Pseudo-Anglicism (temp), delete the redirect that will be created at Pseudo-Anglicism, move Pseudo-anglicism to Pseudo-Anglicism with history & talk intact, and merge edits to Pseudo-Anglicism since its creation into the old one. Whew! So, maybe don't touch for a couple of minutes. -- John Owens 22:05 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

OK, everything should be good to go now. If anyone feels an overpowering need to move it back to the lowercased Pseudo-anglicism, please have the redirect now there deleted and move this one into its place, rather than copying & pasting it into there. -- John Owens 22:17 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Many thanks, John, for bringing it back --Dieter Simon 22:44 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

Why is pseudo-anglicism capitalized on this page (Pseudo-Anglicism)? That looks out of line with the Wikipedia style of capitalizing only proper nouns in titles and headings, which anglicism certainly is not. I really believe, the term should be spelled pseudo-anglicism and not Pseudo-Anglicism. -- Markus Kuhn 11:32, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is the result of a slightly skewed previous attempt at redirecting to a lower-case version. So, there should be redirect lower-case version around. If you are going to "have the overpowering need to move it back to the lowercased Pseudo-anglicism, please have the redirect now there deleted and move this one into its place, rather than copying & pasting it into there" (John Owens words, see above). Dieter Simon 00:21, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry about the confusion: I'm still learning how to use things like "move", and the slooooowness of things sometimes gets in the way. Jacquerie27 06:55 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

Slowness? What slown... SQL error while processing... ess? -- John Owens 06:58 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

Ok, understood, thanks,

--Dieter Simon 20:32 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

IMO the word "Karaoke" doesn't fall into the category of "pseudo-Anglicisms" The latter is defined here to be kind of false friend, with the main trait to be misleading to the native English speaker. There is nothing misleading in Karaoke IMO. There are scores of words in Japanese language borrowed from English and sometimes distorted beyond recognition. But distortion does not make them "pseudo": it happens all the time with words, borrowed or even native ones. One might argue that the literal meaning of Karaoke, i.e., "without orchestra" is misleading, because Karaoke involves recorded accompaniment without vocal, rather than vocal without orchestra. But hardly an average English speaker is aware of that and hence might feel mislead.

Therefore I'd suggest to move the interesting case of "Karaoke" into a more appropriate article about neologisms.

I could propose the following draft.

<<<

Some Japanese neologisms of English origin are worth noticing because they have found their way back into English (as well as into numerous other languages).

Karaoke is an abbreviated form of the agglutination kara (empty) + ôkesutora (orchestra, the English version of its Greek original). It stands for the singing of popular tunes by participants to the accompaniment of these tunes recorded with original vocal absent or less loud.
Anime is an abbreviation of the Japanese transliteration of "animation"; it denotes Japanese animated video.

>>>

mikkalai 21 Nov 2003

Hi Mikkalai,

Sorry, if I didn't do a better job explaining this particular item. Yes, I do understand that neologisms occur in Japanese as well as any other languages, it is the way they originate that is the point. I have rewritten my original para.

It is not meant to be pseudo from a Japanese point of view. From an English point of view it is the "empty orchestra", when people in a pub, for example, are singing to the accompaniment of pre-recorded music, that is such a beautiful metaphor. The Japanese use of the combination does get close to a pseudo-anglicism. This is not meant as a slight against Japanese speakers of English.
Dieter Simon 22:44, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)

May I suggest that the useage of the word "strafe" in modern computer games is not as inaccurate as indicated, as were a person to fire while making the mentioned sideways motion they would be strafing the enemy with fire, in line with the mentioned common use as the horizontal yawing component of the original term, merely transplanted to a different context.

aragoto November 8, 2004

I'd suggest removing "hoomu" from the notes on Japanese. This doesn't come from the English "home"; it is simply a Japanese abbreviation of "purattohoomu" ("platform"). I presume the shortened form took over because the seven-character full version is tedious to pronounce in Japanese. You might substitute "abekku" (from the French "avec"), which means either "a (dating) couple" (slightly out of date usage) or "successive home runs hit by the third and fourth batters in a baseball game".

Why don't you have a go yourself, aragoto? I am sure you can make good para of this. Dieter Simon 01:05, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

French "parking" isn't equivalent to English "parking" but, rather, corresponds to British English "car park" and American English "parking lot". French "camping" is analogous. French "shampooing" isn't English but thinks it is.

-philia

The suffix -philia does not actually mean "perversion" as such, it means "love of, attraction to, or pleasure in". It is only when it is used in a compound form as a term of disapprobation or censure that it takes on the connotation "perversion", as in paraphilia, paedophilia, etc. The compound term paraphilia actually means "abnormal sexual behaviour or tendency", but not the suffix "-philia" itself. Dieter Simon 7 July 2005 22:35 (UTC)

"Pathetic": Sorry, could you tell us what the Greek antonym of "pathetic" is then and why it means the opposite? (;-) Many thanks. Dieter Simon 7 July 2005 22:56 (UTC)

Pathetic; arousing pitty, miserably inadequate. From Greek pathetikos meaning "sensitive" from pathos meaning "suffering". Not really antonymical so much as semantic shift.

Clarification needed

The heading section features a paragraph regarding Japanese, which includes the following phrases:

“Also, although the expressions are now out of date, "my home" and "my car" (meaning "one's own home" and "one's own car") enjoyed popularity for many years. English speakers were baffled when they heard questions like "Do you have my home?"”

I was unable to infer the intended meaning for "Do you have my home?", can someone clarify this in the article? (You may call me an idiot for not being able to understand it if you wish, but if I can't, then maybe some other people can't either. :-)) --Gutza ^{T T+} 21:49, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

beamer?

"Beamer" is a commonly-used word in the United States for BMW. I believe it's being misinterpreted as a pseudo-Anglicism by British-English speakers (mostly since I've never heard of the word "beamer" being used to mean projector).

In Dutch we do use 'beamer' to mean a projector. It's mostly used for projectors that are fed the picture to project via electronic signals, not for film/slide/overhead projectors. Beamer in the sense of 'car of the BMW-brand' is not used, we call such a car 'BMW' (pronounced bay-yum-way)

Pieter 16:31, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Do pseudo-anglisisms like 'handy,' and 'oldtimer' also exist in Dutch and the Scandinavian languages? As a matter of interrest, does Scots (as opposed to Englisch spoken with a Scottish accent and a few distictive words such as 'outwith') have them. Do they exist in laguages such as Gaelic, Irish and Welsh.Myrtone (the strict Australian wikipedian)(talk)

Pathetic

Based on what is stated above, that the term was correctly borrowed but later had a semantic shift, the term should probably be removed. --Dpr 05:42, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Barkeeper

i made an update to the page, to insert the word "Barkeeper" which i have never heard in my life before i went to germany. when i explained to the germans that we say "bartender" in english, they were like.. really? anyhow, would just like to know why it was removed. Dentontyndale 06:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC) (just updated this to put my name beside my comment. thanks for the response and clarification by the way. it is an english word though no native english speaker i have met uses it. there is no doubt in my mind now that it is not a pseudo-anglicism.)[reply]

If you have never heard of the term "barkeeper" in English, then you haven't been around. See the following websites alone:

However, there are many more anglophone websites, discussing the word (yes, there are a number of German websites as well), but see http://www.searchmash.com/search/barkeeper

I strongly recommend taking it out of "pseudo-anglicism", if an old-timer (no not the German pseudo-anglicism "oldtimer") like Mark Twain can use it in English, then we can all use it in English and it has no business in the Wikipedia article "Pseudo-anglicism". Dieter Simon 00:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

disputed pseudo-anglicisms in german

Dieter asserts that (Dunking, Dribbling, Wellness, nick, to chat are used in exactly the same way in English, and have the same meanijng. They are therefor not pseudo-anglicisms) Where have you heard native English speakers say "That was a good dunking!" or "That was a good dribbling!"? Also, where in the Anglophone world do they say "nick" for screenname?

Come, Come now, Adam, you are being funny, aren't you? 'Dunking', 'dribbling', etc. are present participles or nouns of the verbs 'to dunk', 'to dribble', etc. and therefore are fully explained as English words in such worthy (American) English dictionaries as msn. Encarta; Merriam-Webster Online; dictionary.com; and www.onelook.com and explained as perfectly good basketball expressions. 'To dribble' or 'dribbling' is also a British English expression, this time in soccer, which means exactly what it means in German. If you insist to use the words in slightly weird phrases such as "That was a good dribbling!", etc., I can only say that I feel a bit sorry for you. I can assure you that you can hear "That was a nice bit of dribbling" any time on any English football terraces. All you need to consult is any decent English dictionaries and the words will be defined in English as English words. As for 'nick' as a screenname, that derives from and is abbreviated for 'nickname', but is also used in English forums, for example. Just look around. Dieter Simon 01:50, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Swiss made (Swiss-made)

Is "Swiss made" (or "Swiss-made") correct English? I do not believe so. Merriam-Webster has no matches. "Swiss", as far as I know, is an adjective, not an adverb, and thus cannot be combined with an other adjective ("made"). So "Swiss made" could be a pseudo-anglicism, for the term is used in many product labels, e.g. watches. Cf. also [1] and [2] (<-- in window title) as examples. Wkr, --Paunaro 18:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's a pseudo-Anglicism so much as a simple hyphenation error. — Gwalla | Talk 07:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sexdate

This is used all over the place in Germany's largest gay hook-up site, [www.gayromeo.de]. It has since entered the vernacular. Zweifel 08:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kicker (German) / Foosball (English)

Seems that it gets Anglicized in one direction and Germanized (fußball) in the other. Does this merit a mention? Nof 21:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the face

What about the Spanish by the face? It's a word-for-word translation of por la cara ("[to do something] shamelessly, [to be given something] absolutely free"). It's not uncommon to hear it as "baideféis". Does it qualify? --Error 22:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pompom Girl

Despite what the page said, I heard an American from Arkansas (and not one likely to have been influenced by French, if I might say) use this expression. Another confirmed me it was a perfectly acceptable term which he heard interchangeable for cheerleader for his whole life... So does it really deserve to stay as a pseudo-anglicism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.224.148.118 (talk) 18:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of pseudo-foreign words adapted to English

Mikkalai, your removal of the list of pseudo-foreign because of being "unreferenced"? I can understand the reason why they don't really belong into a list of pseudo-anglicisms (they had been added because there were no other lists for them at the time when I created "Pseudo-anglicism") but because of being "unreferenced"? That's a bit disingenuous isn't it? What are you going to do then with all the "unreferenced" and unsourced pseudo-anglicisms? Are you going to throw them out too? I suppose you'll have one or two left, if you are lucky. Just to chuck them like that without referring to any-one is pretty un-Wikipedian isn't it? Or isn't it necessary any more to have some kind of article about foreign words which have had their meaning changed when used in the English vernacular? Or were you going to create new articles yourself? I have started a German one for the time being. Dieter Simon (talk) 01:39, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tagalog

Doesn't Tagalog have a lot of loanwords from English as an American colony?--69.234.211.219 (talk) 17:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, why don't you tell us and cite the sources where the facts may be found. All additional material would be welcome. The only thing is that pseudo-anglicisms in Tagalog would have to have their original meanings changed fo make it a pseudo-anglicism. Dieter Simon (talk) 23:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a big expert on it or anything, but some of the information is already on Wikipedia, just not in this article. If we have editors on the English Wikipedia who also speak Tagalog, I think that more will come. --69.234.183.233 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Body?

Well, on German article discussion, the pseudo-anglicism state of "body" is disputed! Yes you do not have it listed in the German section, but you do in other languages! My researches also gave the result that in English the piece of clothing is called body suit, BUT also abbreviated as "body". Hence I'd sugggest to remove the "body" entry from all language sections. -andy 92.227.17.160 (talk) 22:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Break [fra]

This is English!! Break - Je fais un break = I rest. Nonsensical entry! In English: "I take a break" = "I rest", too! Makes no sense for me to list this here. -andy 92.227.17.160 (talk) 22:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]