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stranger
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OP
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I'm both amused and irritated by English words used with a new meaning (one native English speakers would not understand) in German. Examples are "handy", "evergreen", or "oldtimer". Do any of you know of such words in other languages? How about foreign words used in English with a completely new meaning?
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Joined: Jul 2000
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old hand
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old hand
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A couple more English words used in German I know are "fair", "Gangster", and "teenager." So, a German sentence could be: "Das Teenager ist ein Gangster und das ist nicht fair."
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The use of English words in Spain is becoming a fashionable practice, specially in posh circles. Purists are irritated by that practice and my opinion is that, when existing a suitable Spanish word, the use of an equivalent English word is a snobbism. But the thing I would like to write about is the coining of new technical Spanish words from English ones. Among computer guys, or gals, is not uncommon hearing verbs like “displayar”, “atachar”. “deletear”, “renamear”, or “resetear”. Those words are not, and surely will not be, officially accepted and lots of people argue strongly against its use but in this case, clearly against the mainstream opinion, I find several reasons that make its use convenient and acceptable. - They have precise meanings. If I say “displayar” I mean “showing something on a computer screen”. They don’t need a context to explain its meaning. - They are not impoverishing our language since they are not substituting existing Spanish words. We have the general purpose “exhibir” and use “displayar” only for computer screens. - I have grew accustomed to using them and cannot help finding reasons to justify its use.  Juan Maria.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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ammelah, what are the meanings attributed to your three examples in German? I can think of one in Brazilian Portuguese: "outdoor" means "billboard."
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stranger
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AnnaStrophic, I like your example very much. You may be surprised to read that in Austrian German, a "handy" is a cell phone, an "evergreen" is an old well-loved song, and an "oldtimer" is a vintage car!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ammelah,
How fascinating! Each appropriate in its own way, but...
how on earth did they arrive at that particular meaning,
I wonder? I esp. like the "handy"! Got any more?
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>>"handy" is a cell phone, an "evergreen" is an old well-loved song, and an "oldtimer" is a vintage car<< These words exist in English usage with the same meanings, so I guess the cross-over to German was fairly predictable. Similar things happen here in New Zealand, where Maori words are commonly interspersed in English speech. I have heard them in Radio and TV newscasts, so they must be acceptable. But then I have also heard some of the most excruciating verbification of nouns in the same media, so New Zealand English can't be held up as a paragon of linguistic virtue! 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Here in Indonesia, mobile phones are almost universally known as handphones. Some of the most difficult words are ones which mean almost the same as they do in English but not quite. Industri, for example, means an industry as we would know it, but also a manufacturing company. A konglomerat is someone who owns lots of companies. Sosialisasi (socialisation)is the process of making the public aware of new laws. There are other examples which I'll post as and when I think of them.
Bingley
Bingley
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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there are thousands of such words in japanese. some like door or schedule have pretty much the same meanings as in english (just the pronunciation is adapted to katakana - "doa" and "sukeju-ru").
others change from abbreviation like "contakuto" for contact lenses or "pasocom" for personal computer. an interesting thing in this group is that some words make it as standard japanese - desk top computer "desuku toppu", but others don't - lap top is unknown, everyone says "no-to pasocom" from notebook.
the next group is words that aren't easily understandable like "suto-bu" which is a heater (officially with a space on top for heating a kettle but often doesn't).
one of the most interesting things is how words take on their own direction once in the language. for example bargain (ba-gen), has come to mean sale rather than a single cheap item. a possible reason for this is that japanese nouns are uncountable.
another fantastic borrowing happening here is the use of the alphabet as a substitute for full words. Y as in "wai shatsu" means a business shirt; this comes from white which sounds like "Y". W is recently being used as "double", and H which sounds suspiciously like the japanese "echi" meaning sex, is printed in the middle of a japanese article and is an indication of the content...
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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Thanks, William and Bingley!
These are so fascinating for me, since I've no other
means of learning such things!
Gee, William--are there any articles with "WH"? Wonder if
that would correspond w/ our X ratings? So-called "adult
movies" here are advertised as Triple-X--that means
everything is shown.
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