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Pseudo-anglicism

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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

Chinese

  • BB call — pager
  • DM — flyer, brochure, junk mail (from "direct mail")
  • MV — music video
  • VC — Vitamin C

Danish

Dutch

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
  • Flipper — pinball machine
  • Playback (also in many other European languages) — lip sync

French

German

Main article: Denglisch
  • Air-Condition — abbreviated from air conditioning
  • Beamer (also in Dutch) — video projector
  • Beautyfarm (also in Italian) — spa
  • Black Music — Music in the Hip-Hop/Rap genre.
  • 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
  • Car (Switzerland only; also in French) — motor coach
  • Cornflakes — any breakfast cereal
  • Chatten — written form of communication over the Internet
  • Dressman — male model
  • Ego-Shooter — first-person shooter (derived from Latin "Ego" = "I")
  • Flipper (also in French and Italian) — pinball machine
  • Fotoshooting — photo session
  • Funeralmaster — undertaker.[1]
  • Funsport — a sport primarily practised in leisure time and for fun
  • Handy — mobile phone
  • Happy End (also in other European languages) — happy ending
  • Highboard — a table-high cupboard
  • Homepage — website
  • Hometrainer — exercise bicycle
  • 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
  • Longseller — long-term (best)seller
  • Messie — a "pack rat", a person engaging in compulsive hoarding
  • Mobbing — bullying
  • Oldtimer — (also in Dutch) — vintage car (or bike or aircraft or boat)
  • Playback — (also in other languages) — lip sync
  • Pocketbook — paperback
  • Pressing (in sport; also in Italian) — forcing
  • Public Viewing — showing of football matches on giant screens in public[2]
  • Pullunder, often Pollunder or Polunder — sweater vest
  • Puzzle — jigsaw puzzle. German "Puzzle" can only be a jigsaw puzzle in English
  • Rumpsteak — sirloin steak.
  • Shootingstar — successful newcomer (sports, music, literature, business, politics...)
  • Shorty — shorts
  • Slipper — lace-less shoes
  • Smoking (also in many other European languages) is not a smoking jacket in the Edwardian sense, but a dinner jacket or tuxedo
  • Showmaster — show host
  • Talkmaster — talk show host
  • Topfit (also in Dutch) — perfectly physically fit
  • 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

Hungarian

  • Autóstop (also in other European languages) — hitchhiking
  • Drill — three of a kind in poker.
  • Farmer means "denim" as well as "(blue) jeans" made of denim
  • Happy end (also in other European languages) — happy ending
  • Pendrive — USB flash drive
  • Playback (also in many other European languages) — lip-synch (in songs)
  • Póker means both the poker hand four of a kind and the game poker itself.
  • Tréning (cf. "training") — jogging suit
  • Wellness — feeling well by expensive means, especially in a chic hotel near a spa
  • Winchester — Hard disk drive

Indonesian

Israeli Hebrew

  • Aktualia (אקטואליה) - real-time, current events
  • Back-Axe (בק-אקס) - rear axle
  • Egzauze (אגזוז) - exhaust pipe
  • Front Back-Axe (פרונט בק-אקס) - front axle
  • Golf (גולף) — turtleneck sweater
  • Tréning (טריינינג) — 'tracksuit', cf. English training
  • Talkback (tokbek טוקבק) - A comment on a blog or a internet news site
  • Patent (pahtent) - an improvisation/innovation.

Italian

Japanese

Main article: Wasei-eigo
  • Ball Point Pen (borupen) — amalgamation of "ball point pen"
  • 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"
  • Lolicon (ロリコン, rorikon) - 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".[4]
  • Fighting (파이팅 or 화이팅) — a Korean cheer that can roughly be translated as "Victory!" but can also be used as a word of encouragement (a la "Courage!").[5][6]
  • Handphone (also in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia etc., 핸드폰) — a mobile phone.
  • Office-tel (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 "bottom's up". It challenges the drinker to finish his drink in one gulp.[7]
  • Sharp (also in Japanese, 샤프) — a mechanical pencil.
  • Skin scuba (스킨스쿠버) — Scuba-diving.

Polish

  • Fitness (also in many other European languages) — fitness training as a kind of gymnastics
  • Happy end (also in other European languages) — happy ending
  • Smoking (also in many other European languages) is not a smoking jacket in the Edwardian sense, but a dinner jacket or tuxedo
  • String - G-string
  • Camping (also in other European languages) — campsite
  • Parking (also in French and Spanish) — parking lot (car park)

Portuguese

  • Cooper — To jog.
  • Funk — A style of music from Rio de Janeiro, completely unrelated to American funk music
  • Night — (Brazilian Portugese) Nightlife, particularly meeting members of the opposite sex.
  • Outdoor — Billboard, using the English adjective as a noun.
  • Shopping — Shopping mall, using the English gerund as a noun.
  • Show — Concert, particularly a popular-music concert ("concerto" is used mainly for classical music")
  • Smoking (also in many other European languages) is not a smoking jacket in the Edwardian sense, but a dinner jacket or tuxedo. However in Brazilian Portuguese, sometimes its name is tuxedo /tu'ʃɛdu/.
  • 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

Russian

Serbian/Croatian

  • Discount (Diskont) — a store
  • Drugstore (Dragstor) - a corner store that is open in evenings or overnight. They do not offer pharmacy services.
  • Full (Ful) - Full house (in poker)
  • Goalman (Golman) - Goalkeeper
  • Insert — Movie clip
  • Marketing - Advertising
  • Playback (Plejbek) — Lip-synching in music
  • Poker - Four of a kind (in poker)
  • Recorder (Rekorder) – record holder (in sports)
  • Spot — Music video
  • Strip - Comic book or Comic strip

Spanish

  • Basket - basketball
  • Bistec - beef steak
  • Body – bodice
  • Boxer — boxer shorts
  • Camping (also in other European languages) — campsite
  • Fitness (also in many other European languages) — fitness training as a kind of gymnastics
  • Fútbol - phonetic transcription for football.
  • Footing (also in French and Italian) — jogging
  • Güisqui - phonetic transcription for whisky.
  • 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".
  • Hotcake — pancake
  • Inbox -email message
  • Lifting (also in Italian, Romanian, French and Swiss German) — facelift
  • un nuevo look — a makeover (hair, clothing, makeup etc.)
  • Parking (also in French and Russian) — parking lot (US, Canada) or car park (UK, Aus)
  • Panty (also in Dutch) or panti — pantyhose
  • Peeling (also in other European languages) — facial or body scrub
  • Playback (also in many other European languages) — lip-sync (in songs)
  • 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
  • Slip — briefs
  • Smoking (Esmoquin) (also in many other European languages) is not a smoking jacket in the Edwardian sense, but a dinner jacket or tuxedo
  • Snow — an abbreviation for "snowboard" as sport. The board is called tabla de snow
  • Zapping (also in French, Italian and German) — channel surfing

Swedish

  • Smoking (also in many other European languages) is not a smoking jacket in the Edwardian sense, but a dinner jacket or tuxedo.
  • 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.

Thai

Turkish

  • Basket - basketball
  • Body – bodybuilding
  • Fitness (also in many other European languages) – fitness training as a kind of gymnastics
  • Flirt - generally used as dating
  • Cola (derived from Coca-Cola) – refers to any soft drink
  • Playback (also in many other European languages) – lip-synch (in songs)
  • Smoking or smokin (also in many other European languages) - tuxedo
  • String (also in other European languages) refers exclusively to a G-string

Vietnamese

  • Camera ([ca mê ra] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: vn (help)) - camcorder
  • Dollar ([đô la] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: vn (help)) - explicitly US dollar
  • Film ([phim] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: vn (help)) - refers to both movies and soap opera
  • Photo ([phô tô] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: vn (help)) - photocopy
  • Remote ([rờ mốt] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: vn (help)) - remote control
  • Sex ([sét] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: vn (help)) - wearing revealing clothes that make the wearer appear lustful
  • Style ([xì tin] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: vn (help)) - appearing teenage, active, playful and modern
  • Vest ([vét] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: vn (help)) - Western suit in clothing

Yiddish

  • cherry lights red headlights
  • hitshn to hitchhike
  • payday salary/payment

Sources

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.bestatter.de/bdb2/pages/news/presseinformationen_pdf.php?id=53&filename=bdb_presseinformation_2000-12-11.pdf Official press information of the Federation of German Undertakers/header
  2. ^ "Public Viewing". Retrieved 18 May 2009.
  3. ^ According to linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, this pseudo-anglicism might have "been influenced by Italian fili ‘threads’ (plural of Italian filo ‘thread’.[citation needed]) Italian feeling is used in Italian pop music, for example in the song Pensami per te (‘Think about me for your sake’) (by Cogliati/Ciani/Cassano), sung by Anna Oxa, which includes Tra di noi c’é uno strano feeling che ci lega ormai ‘Between us there is a strange feeling that binds us by now’."See p. 102 of Zuckermann, Ghil'ad 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.
  4. ^ Desa Philadelphia (26 November 2001). "Local English". Time. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  5. ^ Kim Hyo-jin (10 June 2002). "English? Konglish? Purists concede to 'fighting' cheer". JoongAng Daily. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  6. ^ ""Korea Fighting!"". JoongAng Daily. 18 June 2006. Retrieved 2 August 2009.
  7. ^ http://e4u.ybmsisa.com/EngPlaza/hotWord.asp?idx=1447&page=7

External links

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