Pseudo-anglicism
German, borrowed from English but used in a way native English speakers of English would not readily recognize or understand. They are related to false friends or false cognates. Many speakers of German, for example, believe pseudo-Anglicisms like these to be real English words:
- Twen - anyone who is in their twenties, or the age itself.
- Talkmaster - a talk show host
- Dressman - a male model
- fesch - Austrian German construct for smart, natty, chic, attractive or dashing which originated in the English "fashionable".
There are also pseudo-Anglicisms that are proper English words but are used in German with totally different meanings. Thus a "Smoking" in German (and French) is not a "smoking jacket" in the Edwardian sense, but means a "dinner-jacket" or "tuxedo", a "Handy" is not something that is useful or accessible but a mobile phone, and the many Germans carrying a "body bag" with them do not expect to handle dead bodies but rather carry a backpack. German spoken with many English words is called Genglish or Denglisch.
There are, of course, pseudo-Anglicisms in French as well as other languages, and it may be hoped other examples will demonstrate this and be included in this article. French spoken with a high proportion of English words is often called "Franglais".
One example should be noted from the Japanese (or "Engrish"), that of karaoke, the abbreviated form of kara empty + ôkesutora, orchestra. It stands, of course, for the singing of popular tunes by various members of an audience to the accompaniment of prerecorded tapes. Rather than being a kind of pseudo-anglicism this combined Japanese-English/Greek form of "empty orchestra" may be seen to be a particularly fine example of metaphor. Japanese does, however, use other examples of this such as "hoomu", a (train) platform from English "home".
Sometimes these words are imported back into English like "walkman", "The Blitz") the sustained attack by the German Luftwaffe from 1940-1941 which began after the Battle of Britain. It was adapted from "Blitzkrieg", "lightning war", the sudden and overwhelming attack on many smaller European countries and their defeat by the Wehrmacht. "Blitz" has never been used in actual German in its aerial-war aspect and became an entirely new usage in English during World War II. The word has also been adopted by American football to describe a defensive play when linebackers and/or defensive backs join the linemen in an attempt to overwhelm the quarterback.
- (to) strafe - in its sense of "to machine-gun troop assemblies and columns from the air", became a new adaptation during World War II, of the German word "strafen" - to punish. In recent years "strafe" has referred specifically to the horizontal yawing motion of an airplane raking an area with machine-gun fire, and been incorrectly used to mean "to move sideways while looking forward", so that many first-person shooter computer games have "strafe" keys.
Another example, a Russian adaptation of a German word is "parikmakher" - barber or hairdresser, which derives from German Perück(en)macher which in its turn has the equivalent (peri)wig maker or peruke maker in English. Originally the word comes from the Italian parrucca, via the French perruque. It is thus that an erstwhile wig-maker of centuries ago has been changed to a hairdresser in a modern language.
Pseudo-Gallicisms
At least two such French expressions have found a home in English. The first continued in its adopted language in its original obsolete form centuries after it had changed its morpheme in national French:
- double entendre - still used in English long after it had changed to "double entente" or "double sens" in France, and has of course two meanings, one of which is of a sexually dubious nature. This might be classed a kind of "pseudo-Gallicism".
- bon viveur - the second word, is not used in French as such while in English it often takes the place of a fashionable man, a sophisticate, a man used to elegant ways, a man-about-town, in fact a bon vivant. In French a viveur is a rake or debauchee; bon does not come into it.
The French bon vivant is the usage for an epicure, a person who enjoys good food. Bonne vivante is not used.
References
- NTC's Dictionary of German False Cognates; Geoff Parkes and Alan Cornell; 1992; National Textbook Company; NTC Publishing Group
See also
