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. They are related to false friends or false cognates. Many speakers of a language which employs pseudo-Anglicisms believe that the relevant words are real English words. The following examples are taken from German:
- Twen - anyone who is in his/her twenties, or the age itself
- Talkmaster - talk show host
- Dressman - male model
- Oldtimer - vintage car (this word proliferated in much of continental Europe)
- Handy - mobile phone
- top-fit - perfectly physically fit
There are also pseudo-Anglicisms that are proper English words but are used in other languages with totally different meanings. Thus a "Smoking" (in German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French, Swedish, Czech, Bulgarian and Estonian) is not a "smoking jacket" in the Edwardian sense, but means a "dinner-jacket" or "tuxedo"; a "Handy" is not something that is useful or accessible but a mobile phone, and the many Germans carrying a "body bag" with them do not expect to handle dead bodies but rather carry a backpack. In Swedish, walkman has for some reason been translated into "freestyle" (despite the fact that the word does not fit particularly well with Swedish grammar), also, trafficking refers primarily to human or sex trafficking, and not to smuggling in general. When many English words are incorporated into German sentences, German language enthusiasts (especially purists) term it Germish. Similarly, spoken French with a high proportion of English words is often called "Franglais". Pseudo-Anglicisms in Japanese are called wasei-eigo (literally, "Made-in-Japan English").
One example should be noted from the Japanese (or "Engrish"), that of karaoke, the abbreviated form of kara empty + ōkesutora, orchestra. It stands, of course, for the singing of popular tunes by various members of an audience to the accompaniment of prerecorded tapes. Rather than being a kind of pseudo-anglicism this combined Japanese-English/Greek form of "empty orchestra" may be seen to be a particularly fine example of metaphor. Japanese does, however, use other examples of this such as "hōmu", a (train) platform from the latter syllable of the English "platform" (プラットホーム). Also, although the expressions are now out of date, "my home" and "my car" (meaning "one's own home" and "one's own car") enjoyed popularity for many years.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?"
Sometimes these words are imported back into English, often as trademarks, like "walkman" from Japanese English.
Sometimes an English word can have different meaning in foreign language, like Russian kliner, meaning "hitman", "hired assassin", which originates in English "cleaner". A kliner is a person who cleans away one's enemies.
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 1940-1941 which began after the Battle of Britain. It was adapted from "Blitzkrieg", "lightning war", the sudden and overwhelming attack on many smaller European countries and their defeat by the Wehrmacht. "Blitz" 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 join the linemen in an attempt to overwhelm the quarterback.
- (to) strafe - in its sense of "to machine-gun troop assemblies and columns from the air", became a new adaptation during World War II, 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.
- Stein - denoting a beer tankard or mug in English but meaning "stone" or "rock" in German. The English word possibly derives from a Steinzeugbierkrug or Steingutbierkrug, German words for "ceramic or earthenware beer tankard". However, that type of vessel is normally called Tonkrug or Tonflasche, Ton being German for clay, potter's earth or earthenware. It should be noted also, that one of Germany's most famous gins is the Steinhäger, produced in Steinhagen, North Rhine-Westphalia , which is sold in cylindric earthenware bottles with very short flanged necks.
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. On the one hand connotations such as secretiveness have crept into the English version. On the other hand the meaning includes 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, however, 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.
References
- Geoff Parkes and Alan Cornell (1992), 'NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates', National Textbook Company, NTC Publishing Group.