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"False" Anglicisms | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Al Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6505 days ago 30 posts - 39 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 25 of 62 11 January 2008 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A few off the top of my head:
Germans refer to any soft drink as Limonade. Coke, Fanta, etc. All breakfast cereal is called "Cornflakes" in Germany. When I was at DLI learning German one of the American teachers used to drive the Germans crazy by saying she had to go to a 'Fleischung' instead of 'meeting.' I guess that is a false Germanism. Edited by Al on 11 January 2008 at 1:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6574 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes  Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 26 of 62 14 January 2008 at 5:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've heard a lot of them in Spanish but can't think of any good ones that haven't already been mentioned. OK, I have, socear, literally "to soccer" and footballer, "to football", bizarre manifestations of English words as verbs. I've heard people use "moneyear" to mean bribing. "he moneyado el cop" (I've bribed the cop). These are all exclusively US usages as far as I can tell.
Yiddish is chalk full of this stuff in this country (English is also stuffed with mispronounced and misused Yiddish words but that's a whole other story). Payday means salary or payment, not payday. "Tsekal" to Hasidic Jews means cellphone, a weird mixture of a mispronounciation of the English word cell (the actual Yiddish word is not widely known, as many science terms are now English words) and the English word call merged together, cell plus call Yiddishized together became tsekal. I've heard the English word "bad" be used to mean good in Yiddish (like slang English), "er iz a badderer mentsh" (he's a very good person). I've seen the noun caller be used in the sense of someone going to check up on someone. I've heard "singloman", a mispronounciation of single and man put together mean bachealor. Boychik, a combination of the English boy and the adjectival suffix ik is also common in both English (people think it's a Yiddish word) and Yiddish, although this is known not to be a real English word to Yiddish speakers. "Textbook" has historically been misunderstood to be a book full of tests, something I guess that would be at a school or something. "Brudda", mispronunciation of brother, has entered both Spanish and Yiddish (and I'm sure many other languages) to mean a good friend, or a homey. I've heard the English dog (or dug which is how it would be said in Yiddish with a southern accent which is more common in this country) used in both as well to mean the same thing, probably an influence from black English and or television and movies. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| epingchris Triglot Senior Member Taiwan shih-chuan.blog.ntu. Joined 7028 days ago 273 posts - 284 votes 5 sounds Studies: Taiwanese, Mandarin*, English, FrenchB2 Studies: Japanese, German, Turkish | Message 27 of 62 20 January 2008 at 8:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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There are two especially popular, also extremely unusual ones among Taiwanese youngsters:
1. "play". Basically it meaning "waiting for one's turn (to play/read/do sth.)" It's used in sentences like, "wo3 yao4 bao4 play!" (literally, "I want to arrange/request a play!") It's similar to sentences like "Who play is it now?" Let's take the example of reading an article in the newspaper. If you're first one to read after the person who is reading it right now was done, you say "play one!". If you're second, you say "play two!" and so on. 2. "case". We say "zhe4 shi4 xiao3 case." (It's a small case) to mean that it's a piece of cake, i.e. easy as pie. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Jiwon Triglot Moderator Korea, South Joined 6436 days ago 1417 posts - 1500 votes Speaks: EnglishC2, Korean*, GermanC1 Studies: Hindi, Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 28 of 62 20 January 2008 at 10:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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Korean has lots of crazy English loan words.
컨닝 (Keon-Ning)"cunning" - cheating 아프터서비스 (A-peu-teo-seo-bi-seu) "after-service" - after-sales service 핸드폰 (Haen-deu-pon) "hand-phone" - mobile phone 노트북 (No-teu-book)"notebook" - laptop computer 사이다 (Sa-i-da)"cider" - sprite-like drink 핸들 (Haen-deul) "handle" - steering wheel 킹카 (King-ka) - a male hottie, similarly Queen-ka is the female equivalent. 본드 (Bon-Deu) "bond" - superglue They also pronounce "amylase" as "a-mal-la-a-je". That one just stunned me out of senses. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 29 of 62 20 January 2008 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 30 of 62 21 January 2008 at 6:24am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, those are anglicisms, yes, but since notebook computer is used in English about smaller laptops, it is questionable what is false about them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ruan Diglot Groupie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6181 days ago 95 posts - 101 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English | Message 31 of 62 23 January 2008 at 7:23am | IP Logged | |||||
Portuguese notebook: laptop computer superbonder: superglue cute cute: Beautiful, cute ( only applies to babys and very young girls ) Edited by Ruan on 23 January 2008 at 7:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| vuisminebitz Triglot Groupie United States Joined 6574 days ago 86 posts - 108 votes Speaks: Yiddish, English*, Spanish Studies: Swahili | Message 32 of 62 26 January 2008 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've heard notebook in American English but I don't know if the term is still used. Still I wouldn't consider it a false one.
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