Language desk
< June 4	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 6 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 5[edit]

Air con[edit]

I was once interested in some books from 'avoid using Engrish' movement, and I was convinced that "air con" was one of such words originated in Japan.

But years later, I heard a native English speaker from an Anglophone country calling the device an "air con", and even heard some Top Gear presenters from Clarkson-May-Hammond era saying the word.

What happened? I mean, where the heck that portmanteau even came from if it is not from Japan? JSH-alive/^{talk/cont/mail} 17:25, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's an English term: [1], wikt:air-con. Bazza (talk) 17:28, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In America, "A/C" is more often used. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:05, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Common enough in the UK, although some disagreement over whether it should be air con, air-con or aircon. Alansplodge (talk) 18:46, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Like how e-mail evolved to email. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:49, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Air con" has been in use in the UK since 1970 according to the OED third edition. Dbfirs 21:35, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Its geographical origin aside, "air con" is not a blend (or "portmanteau"): it's a clipping (cf fax, fridge, gym, etc). -- Hoary (talk) 05:15, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Why would it have to come from Japan? Pretty much any European language uses such awkward borrowings for foreign terms. For example, here in Croatia when we're not using the native Croatian word ("klima-uređaj") we call the device "air-condition" (sic). 93.136.8.0 (talk) 22:43, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese has a particular way of forming tetramoraic abbreviations (a two-mora clipping of the first word followed by a two-mora clipping of the second word -- where a light (C)V syllable counts as one mora, while a syllable with long vowel, or ending in a nasal consonant or the first half of a geminate consonant, counts as two moras). The article Japanese abbreviated and contracted words has a list containing a number of examples of this type of tetramoraic abbreviation of loanwords: amefuto, dejikame, famikon, famiresu, pasokon, puroresu, rimokon, wāpuro -- and in fact eakon for "air conditioner"... AnonMoos (talk) 01:14, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That certainly solves the question. Thank you everyone. JSH-alive/^{talk/cont/mail} 17:18, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]