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Pseudo-anglicism

A pseudo-anglicism is a word in another language that is formed from English elements and may appear to be English, but that does not exist as an English word with the same meaning.

For example, English speakers traveling in France may be struck by the "number of anglicisms—or rather words that look English—which are used in a different sense than they have in English, or which do not exist in English (such as rallye-paper, shake-hand, baby-foot, or baby-parc)".

This is different from a false friend, which is a word with a cognate that has a different main meaning; in some cases, pseudo-anglicisms become false friends.

Definition and terminology

Pseudo-anglicisms are also called secondary anglicisms, false anglicisms, or pseudo-English.

Pseudo-anglicisms are a kind of lexical borrowing where the source or donor language is English, but where the borrowing is reworked in the receptor or recipient language.

The precise definition varies. Duckworth defines pseudo-anglicisms in German as "neologisms derived from English language material." Furiassi includes words that may exist in English with a "conspicuously different meaning".

Typology and mechanism

Pseudo-anglicisms can be created in various ways, such as by archaism, i.e., words that once had that meaning in English but are since abandoned; semantic slide, where an English word is used to mean something different than its English meaning; conversion of existing words from one part of speech to another; or recombinations by reshuffling English units.

Onysko speaks of two types: pseudo-anglicisms and hybrid anglicisms. The common factor is that each type represents a neologism in the receptor language resulting from a combination of borrowed lexical items from English. Using German as the receptor language, an example of the first type is Wellfit-Bar, a combination of two English lexical units to form a new term in German, which does not exist in English, and which carries the meaning, "a bar that caters to the needs of health-starved people." An example of the second type, is a hybrid based on a German compound word, ' (long jump), plus the English "coach", to create the new German word Weitsprung-Coach.

According to Filipović, pseudo-anglicisms can be formed through compounding, suffixation, or ellipsis. For example, the Serbo-Croatian word was created from the English word goal, which the word man was added to. Alternatively, suffixes such as or may be added to an English word to create a new word in Serbo-Croatian, such as or . Ellipsis may also occur, wherein a component of an English word is dropped, such as the suffix -ing; examples include from boxing, or from happy ending.

Another process of word formation that can result in a pseudo-anglicism is a blend word, consisting of portions of two words, like brunch or smog. Rey-Debove & Gagnon attest tansad in French in 1919, from English tan[dem] + sad[dle].

Scope

Pseudo-anglicisms can be found in many languages that have contact with English around the world, and are attested in nearly all European languages.

The equivalent of pseudo-anglicisms derived from languages other than English also exist. For example, the English-language phrase "double entendre", while often believed to be French and pronounced in a French fashion, is not actually used in French. For other examples, see dog Latin, list of pseudo-French words adapted to English, and list of pseudo-German words adapted to English.

Examples

Many languages

Some pseudo-anglicisms are found in many languages and have been characterized as "world-wide pseudo-English", often borrowed via other languages such as French or Italian:

  • ' – hitchhiking in French, Italian, Czech, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Greek οτοστόπ, Russian автостоп, Spanish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, etc.
  • ' – a shortening of basketball in French, Italian, Romanian baschet, Spanish básquet, Swedish, Turkish, etc. (also may refer to sneakers/trainers, e.g. in French and Romanian)
  • ' – campsite or campground in French, Dutch, Greek κάμπινγκ, Bulgarian , Russian ке́мпинг, Czech and Polish kemping, Portuguese, Spanish, etc.
  • ' – dinner jacket, tuxedo, or smoking jacket in Danish, French, Czech, Portuguese, German, Italian, Dutch, Greek σμόκιν, Russian, etc.

Korean

  • one shot – "bottoms up" (원샷 [wʌn.ɕjat̚])
  • hand phone – "cellphone" (핸드폰 [hɛn.dɯ.pon])
  • skinship – platonic hand-holding, hugging, etc. (스킨십; [sɯ.kÊ°in.ɕip̚])

Romance

French

French includes many pseudo-anglicisms, including novel compounds (baby-foot), specifically compounds in -man (tennisman), truncations (foot), places in -ing (dancing meaning dancing-place, not the act of dancing), and a large variety of meaning shifts.

  • (m, pronounced ) – table football
  • – playpen
  • – drinks in privileged company before a party, a.k.a. "pregame" (opposite of )
  • – music quiz / "name that tune"
  • – blow-dry and styling
  • – high-rise building, tower block
  • – wifi router or parking space
  • – dance hall
  • (noun) – walk-in closet
  • – a brief romance, flirtation, a boyfriend or girlfriend
  • – jogging (though the real English word is also used in French with the same meaning)
  • – dry cleaning shop,
  • – a "fox-and-hounds" like game, except with paper scraps instead of foxes
  • (m; pl: ; f:) – record holder, especially in sports
  • (verb) to make over; also: (n; masc.) – a makeover
  • (noun) – velcro
  • , (feminine) – radio or television announcer
  • – a professional tennis player
  • – a wheelie

Italian

  • autogrill () – rest area (used for any brand, not only for Autogrill chain)
  • beauty farm () – spa
  • The French borrowing ' () is sometimes written in the pseudo-English form ' () – notebook
  • jolly – the joker in a pack of cards
  • pullman – a bus
  • smart working – remote work, where "smart" is used referring to other devices with an Internet connection, such as smartphones and smartwatches.
  • water () – flush toilet (from English water closet)

Portuguese

Germanic

Danish

Dutch

German

German pseudo anglicisms often have multiple valid and common ways of writing them, generally either hyphenated (Home-Office) or in one word (Homeoffice).

  • Beamer – a video projector
  • Bodybag – a messenger bag
  • Dressman – a male model (Onysko calls this the "canonical example" of a pseudo-anglicism.)
  • Flipper – a pinball machine
  • Funsport – a sport played for amusement, such as skateboarding or frisbee
  • Handy – a mobile phone
  • Jobticket – a free pass for public transport provided by an employer for employees
  • Oldtimer – an antique car
  • Shooting – a photoshoot
  • trampen (verb) – hitchhiking
  • mobbing – bullying

More examples:

Norwegian

Swedish

  • after work – a meeting for drinks after the workday is finished
  • backslick – a wet, combed-back hair style
  • mail – e‐mail
  • pocket – a paper-back book
  • public service – public broadcasting
  • speaker – an announcer (such as at sporting events)

Slavic

Serbian

Polish

  • dres – tracksuit; sometimes also short for dresiarz (youth underclass subculture)

Russian

  • ("Clip maker") – music video director
  • ("meeting") – rally, demonstration
  • ("records man") – record holder
  • ("strikeball") – airsoft
  • ("Face control") – the policy of screening people based on their appearance
  • Piar (), from PR for "public relations", came to mean all kind of promotion and related hype; extremely productive, see for derived words

Austronesian

Malaysian Malay

  • action – boast; boastful
  • best – good
  • cable – personal connection or insider
  • power – great
  • sound – scold
  • spender – undergarment for lower body e.g. briefs and panties
  • terror – great

Indonesian

Other languages

Maltese

See also

References

Sources

  • Rosenhouse, Judith, Rotem Kowner, eds., Globally Speaking: Motives for Adopting English Vocabulary in Other Languages, 2008,

Further reading

  • James Stanlaw 2004, Japanese English: Language And The Culture Contact, Hong Kong University Press.
  • Laura Miller 1997, "Wasei eigo: English ‘loanwords' coined in Japan" in The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright, edited by Jane Hill, P.J. Mistry and Lyle Campbell, Mouton/De Gruyter: The Hague, pp. 123–139.
  • Geoff Parkes and Alan Cornell 1992, 'NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates', National Textbook Company, NTC Publishing Group.
  • Ghil'ad Zuckermann 2003, ‘‘Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew’’ , Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change, Series editor: Charles Jones). .

External links