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, Weitsprung (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. <!-- Should this paragraph even be here? It only talks about Serbo-Croatian pseudo-anglicisms, not pseudo-anglicisms in general, and I can't find even a proper summary of that Filipović paper... its page on Google Books is quite useless -->

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, Czech, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Greek οτοστόπ, Russian автостоп, Spanish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, etc. Russian ке́мпинг, Czech and Polish kemping, Portuguese, Spanish, etc.
  • smoking – dinner jacket, tuxedo, or smoking jacket in Danish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Greek σμόκιν,

Korean

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

  • – high-rise building, tower block
  • – wifi router or parking space
  • – a professional tennis player
  • – a wheelie

Italian

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  • 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 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

  • outdoor – billboard
  • home office – work from home
  • shopping – shopping mall
  • integralization – Paid-in capital, subscription (finance)

Spanish

  • puenting – bungee jumping
  • balconing – balconing
  • footing (through French) – jogging, running
  • by the face – gratis; boldly (literal translation of "por la cara", with those meanings)
  • autostop (through French) – hitchhiking
  • tunear (v.), tuneo (n.), tuneado (adj.) – to customize
  • mitin (from meeting) – political rally
  • pressing catch (since 1990s) – freestyle wrestling
  • renting – (initially car) rental
  • friki, friqui (adj. and n.), frikada (n., "activity"), frikismo (n., "attitue") – nerd, geek
  • trávelin (through French) – camera dolly
  • videoclip – music video
  • from lost to the river (humorous) – in for a penny, in for a pound; (once we reached this situation then there is) nothing to lose (literal translation of "de perdidos al río")

Germanic

Danish

  • babylift – baby transport/carrycot
  • cottoncoat – trench coat
  • cowboytoast – minced meat sandwich
  • doorstep – a short and informal press conference
  • monkeyclass – economy class
  • speedmarker – a felt-tip pen
  • stationcar – blend 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

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  • beamer – a video projector (via German pseudo-anglicism Beamer)
  • box – a playpen or a music speaker
  • coffeeshop – a shop selling cannabis
  • keycord – a lanyard
  • oldtimer – a classic car
  • touringcar – a coach (bus)
  • videoclip – a music video

German

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

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  • 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
  • mobbing – bullying

More examples:

Norwegian

  • hands – the offence of handball in association football
  • sixpence – Flat cap

Swedish

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

Slavic

Serbian

  • – a person who bets, especially on sports and other competitions
  • – goalkeeper
  • – happy ending
  • – stretch fabric sometimes also short for dresiarz (youth underclass subculture)

Russian

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  • ("Clip maker") – music video director
  • ("meeting") – rally, demonstration
  • ("records man") – record holder
  • ("strikeball") – airsoft
  • 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
  • cross boy/girl – delinquent person
  • free sex – extramarital sex
  • hand body – hand & body lotion
  • handphone – mobile phone
  • magic com – multifunctional rice cooker
  • outbound – outdoor education or recreational activities
  • sound – sound reinforcement system
  • travel – inter-regional minibus service
  • win-win solution – win-win situation; win-win conflict resolution

Other languages

Maltese

  • goaler – goalkeeper

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

  • <!--Anderman|2005-->
  • <!--Ayres-Bennett|2014-->
  • <!--Baldwin|2020-->
  • <!--Betz|1977-->
  • <!--Carstensen|2015-->
  • <!--Campos-Pardillos|2015-->
  • <!--Duckworth|1977-->
  • <!--Filipovic|1990-->
  • <!--Furiassi|2010-->
  • <!--Furiassi|2012-->
  • <!--Furiassi|2015-->
  • <!--Geyer|1903-->
  • <!--Görlach|2001-->
  • <!--Görlach|2002-->
  • <!--Grossman|2008-->
  • <!--Lujan-Garcia-2017-->
  • <!--Onysko|2007-->
  • <!--Picone|1996-->
  • <!--Rey-Debove|1990-->
  • <!--Rosenhouse|2008-->Rosenhouse, Judith, Rotem Kowner, eds., Globally Speaking: Motives for Adopting English Vocabulary in Other Languages, 2008,
  • <!--Saugera|2017-->
  • <!--Scheibel|2007-->
  • <!--Sicherl|1999-->
  • <!--Winter|1995-->
  • <!--Winter-Froemel|2011-->
  • <!--Yang|1990-->
  • <!--Zenner|2014-->

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.&nbsp;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). .
  • Examples of Japanese pseudo-anglicisms

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