Pseudo-anglicism

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. Sometimes 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 which once had that meaning in English but are since abandoned; semantic slide, where an English word is used incorrectly to mean something else; 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, Weitsprung (long jump), plus the English 'coach', to create the new German word Weitsprung-Coach.
According to Filipović, pseudoanglicisms can be formed through composition, derivation, or ellipsis. Composition in Serbo-Croatian involves creating a new compound from an English word to which is added the word man, as in the example, "GOAL" + man, giving golman. In derivation, a suffix -er or -ist is added to an anglicism, to create a new word in Serbo-Croatian, such as teniser, or vaterpolist. An ellipsis drops something, and starts from a compound and drops a component, or from a derivative and drops -ing, as in boks from "boxing", or "hepiend" 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:
autostop – hitchhiking in French, Italian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Greek οτοστόπ, Russian автостоп, Spanish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Dutch, etc.
basket – basketball in Danish, French, Indonesian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Greek μπάσκετ, Turkish, etc.; also sneakers in French
camping – campsite or campground in French, Greek κάμπινγκ, Bulgarian къмпинг, Russian кемпинг, Polish kemping,<ref>[https://en.pons.com/translate/polish-english/kemping PONS Online Dictionary]</ref> Portuguese, etc.
smoking – dinner jacket, tuxedo, or smoking jacket in Danish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Greek σμόκιν, Russian, etc.
Japanese
– a white collar employee (salaried worker)
Pokémon (ポケモン,"pocket monster")
Korean
one shot – "bottoms up" (원샷 [wʌn.ɕjat̚])
hand phone – "cellphone" (핸드폰 [hɛn.dɯ.pon])
skinship - platonic hand-holding, hugging, etc. (스킨십; seu·kin·sib)
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
– music quiz / 'name that tune'
– blow-dry and stylingCollins le Robert French Dictionary, 11th ed., 2020, s.v. (usage note)
– high-rise building, tower blockCollins le Robert French Dictionary, 11th ed., 2020, s.v.
– dance hall
– a brief romance, flirtation, a boyfriend or girlfriend
– jogging (though the real English word is also used in French with the same meaning)
(m, Belgium) – late-opening grocery shop
– 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
(n; masc.) – rugby player
– shampoo
, (feminine) – radio or television announcer
– luxury, prestige
– surfing
– a tennis player
Italian
autogrill – rest area (used for any brand, not only for Autogrill chain)
beauty farm – spa
The French borrowing bloc-notes is sometimes written in the pseudo-English form block-notes – notebook
jolly – the joker in a pack of cardsCristiano Furiassi, "How jolly is the joker? Problemi di traducibilità dei falsi anglicismi" in the Atti del 5° congresso di studi dell’Associazione Italiana di Linguistica Applicata (AItLA). Bari, 17,18 febbraio 2005
pullman – a bus
smart working – remote work, where "smart" is used referring to other devices with internet connection, such as smartphones and smartwatches.
Brazilian Portuguese
outdoor - billboard
– usb flash drive «pendrive»
Germanic
Danish
babylift – baby transport/carrycot
butterfly – bow tie
cottoncoat – trench coat
cowboytoast – minced meat sandwich
doorstep – a short and informal press conference
grillparty – a barbecue party
monkeyclass – economy class
speedmarker – a felt-tip pen
stationcar – conflation of station wagon (US) and estate car (UK)
timemanager – a calendar or notebook in which one writes down appointments (from the registered trademark Time Manager)
Dutch
beamer – a video projector (via German pseudo-anglicism Beamer)
oldtimer - an antique car
sport - to exercise or engage in a sport
touringcar – a coach (bus)
German
German pseudo anglicisms often have multiple valid and common ways of writing them, generally either hyphenated (Home-Office) or in one word (Homeoffice). Infrequently, CamelCase may also be used.
Beamer – a video projectorBodybag – a messenger bag
Charity-Lady (pl.: Charity-Lady's): upper-class woman who uses her fortune and her social influence to do charity work
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
Homeoffice – working from home, used as a noun
Jobticket – a free pass for public transport provided by an employer for employees
Oldtimer – an antique car
Public Viewing – a public viewing event (party) of a football match or similar
Shooting – a photoshoot
trampen (verb) – hitchhiking
mobbing - bullying
Norwegian
sixpence – Flat cap
Swedish
after work – a meeting for drinks after the workday is finished
backslick – A wet, combed-back hair style
pocket – A paper-back book
Slavic
Polish
dres – tracksuit; sometimes also short for dresiarz (chav, gopnik)
– USB flash drive
– campsite
Russian
Дресс-кроссинг ("Dress crossing") – clothing swap (analogous to postcrossing, bookcrossing); not to be confused with cross-dressing
("Clip maker") – music video director
("strikeball") – airsoft
("Face control") – the policy of screening people based on their appearance
Аниматор ("Animator") – children's entertainer
("camping") – campsite
("records man") – record holder
Austronesian
Tagalog
jeepney – a mode of public transport in the Philippines, much like a form of share taxi
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
Other languages
Hebrew
projector - head of project
See also
Anglicism
Barbarism (modern linguistics)
Calque
Denglisch
False friend
Language transfer
Loanword
List of pseudo-German words adapted to English
List of pseudo-French words adapted to English
Phono-semantic matching
Wasei-eigo
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
Examples of Japanese pseudo-anglicisms
Forms of English
Language histories
ru:Псевдоанглицизм