|
Eurospeak
Apropos the Banter banter, are there any Eurospeak/Franglais/Deutschlish terms that drive you nuts? ie non-native (or as in my case gone-native)english.
Here are some of my faves which unfortunately I encounter on a daily basis.... Viewgraphs = Powerpoint Slides Specificities = Details Perturbate = Disturb (I find it more than a little disturbing when a man comes into my office and asks if he can perturbate me!) Resto = Restaurant Bon ap = Bon Appetite sensible = sensitive guilty = valid (sometimes - if speaker is german) modalities = can be used in describing everything relooking = renovation coocooning = vague term usually referring to a house in Brussels that is actually habitable. Practice sport in the fitness studio = workout in the gym I could go on but I'm just annoying myself and you. |
Apparently, the folks in Britain are "aware" of things as opposed to "knowing about" them...certainly not annoying in any way, just interesting as are the manner in which the words "schedule" and "aluminum" are pronounced and the use of the term "scheme" instead of "plan;"...every time I hear the latter i think someone is plotting against us.
|
Delocalisation = relocation
Typical, as in "typical restaurant", which is NOT the English for "ristorante tipico" The misplaced gerund, as in "With demand from China expected rebounding this year", seems to crop up in every Euro-report I ever get. |
Oh, I can relate to this!! Especially "cocooning" - right up there with "le fooding" as one of the most irritating words in the Frenglish language.
|
Functionality=function
For the French again Footing=Jogging Brushing=Hair styling Lifting=Work out with weights Parking=a car park Irritatingly the American pronounciation of Aluminum is the original and correct..dammit! |
Waring, I thought the French word "lifting" meant "facelift" - didn't know it referred to weights too.
|
I don't really understand the reference of the original post and it seems to imply some prior knowledge or conversation of what this is about. It just seems completely out of nowhere to me.
However, I think if someone is very upset by the term "viewgraph", that is very odd, as that has nothing to do with "eurospeak" and has been used in the US for many years. What's wrong with that term? People in my profession have and do use it all the time. It's used for transparent slides and has for a long time, whether they were made previously by some other software or now by Powerpoint. Resto is just a shortening of a word for slang, and I don't do that so much, but there are many other examples of that in French. Never heard of "perturbate" nor anyone saying it. |
Le fooding has to be the worst...
Smoking = tux Pension = B&B Lastly and leastly = Last but not least Mobbing = Harrassment |
Sorry Christina - I'm just venting about the decline of the English language in Europe. One word on its own may not upset you - but my day sounds a little like this...
"Bonjour Misses X, can I perturbate you for a moment to look at my viewgraphs. There are some specificities of the modalities of the new methodology that are not transparant. After our appointment I go to the fitness studio to practice sport and then I go to the resto with my collaborators to eat something on the terASSE. It is very branche. " All or most of the words exist in English - but they are used somewhat differently in Eurospeak. Collaborators = work colleagues (I always get nervous when I hear this one) |
Short Quiz:
What do German speakers call their cell phones? A. Mobile B. Natel C. Handy (Two possibilities) |
<i>Collaborators = work colleagues (I always get nervous when I hear this one) </i>
Hee hee! I get that one a lot at work too. One of the funniest misuses of English I came across at work was when I worked as a translator for a large IT firm in Paris. For some bizarre reason (the company had no foreign subsidiaries), they insisted on using the English term "Business Unit Managers" to denote a certain category of managers. But to make it sound snappier, they preferred to use the abbreviation B.U.M. - pronounced bum. In American English this is quite amusing (correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't bum = tramp?), but as a Brit I found it absolutely hilarious. When I did try and raise the issue with the B.U.M.s in question (trying to explain the impression it would give to English speaking clients), I was accused of being childish and told that anything could be made to sound rude!! I tried to explain that it wasn't simply a double entendre, but they were too attached to their B.U.M.s... So in the end I left them to it! |
In fairness, is there a neutral English word for branche?
I'm sure I remember them using it back when "with it" was fashionable. And it seems to have survived, untouched by the stigma of being the previous generation's slang, as painlessly as Johnny Hallyday. |
We have no BUMs here but we have BUSTs.
I vaguely remeber we had a CRAC team, the head of which was referred to as the Crack Head by the Brits and the Oirish. |
I'm not sure anyone has a right to be concerned about "the decline of the English language in Europe" (unless you're speaking of England). If you are working in Europe, I think your employees are being accommodating to speak to you in English. Since I imagine it's not their native language, you might cut them a little slack.
At least they don't "conversate" with you, or any of a number of terms I might name that are commonly used by some Americans. A lifting is a facelift, and a relooking is a makeover. Pensions have been around since long before B&B's became popular. |
I have never even heard of these terms, do I live in a cave or something?
|
Oooooh Toupary!
Yes, they deign to speak to me in English - they have to as we work through English - and I deign to speak to people here in French and German, bad Spanish and worse Italian. Thats not my point. The point is that this is not bad knowledge of English. These terms are accepted as Euroenglish and sometimes its impossible for a native English speaker to understand. Sometimes, when I correct these terms in written text, or try to make things a bit more understandable - I'm told by the French/German or whatever that I am incorrect. In fact they try to correct "proper" english here quite a bit. Sometimes unless you have a basic grasp of French and German you will have difficulty understanding "English" texts in Brussels. Anyway, enough of the rant - I'll end on a funny note. I was out for a drink with an Italian friend the other evening and he was explaining that his new girlfriend was very sympathetic (=nice) but he was concerned as she has a very important nose. (Important = big) |
Okay, Lawchick, at least you can laugh about it. Fortunately, knowing their languages helps you to understand what they're getting at. I have one French friend who speaks English very well, but his speech patterns are still French speech patterns. Knowing French has helped me to understand him at times.
It reminds me of a story I heard years ago of a Latin American who was trying to explain to an English speaker why he had no children. "My wife is inconceivable." When he wasn't understood, he tried again. "My wife is impregnable." Finally, frustrated, he said, "You don't understand, my wife is unbearable." |
The term "lifting" is certainly not exclusively Eurospeak since it has been used for years by serious bodybuilders in the US.
I have always hera the term "viewgraph" used to describe the actual machine which projects those transparencies onto a screen. And then there is "Amerospeak" with terms such as "verbage" instead of language "dialogueing together" instead of speaking or conversing "point in time" displacing all sorts of simpler terms and my favorite: "paradigm" which when you look it up is another word for "idea." |
deplane - gets me
|
Hoo, boy, this can get confusing. When "Tattoo(?)" was yelling to "Boss" "De plane. De Plane." he was telling "Boss" to get off the (de) plane? But "de plane" was in de air. Oh, well.
|
>>Apparently, the folks in Britain are "aware" of things as opposed to "knowing about" them.<<
There's a large gap between being aware of something and knowing about it. But if you are aware of it, you've no excuse for pretending no-one told you about it.... |
More recent uses of "paradigm" from the American Heritage Dictionary:
3. A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline. Since the 1960s, paradigm has been used in science to refer to a theoretical framework, as when Nobel Laureate David Baltimore cited the work of two colleagues that “really established a new paradigm for our understanding of the causation of cancer.” Thereafter, researchers in many different fields, including sociology and literary criticism, often saw themselves as working in or trying to break out of paradigms. Applications of the term in other contexts show that it can sometimes be used more loosely to mean “the prevailing view of things.” The Usage Panel splits down the middle on these nonscientific uses of paradigm. Fifty-two percent disapprove of the sentence: The paradigm governing international competition and competitiveness has shifted dramatically in the last three decades. |
Once I had a railroad,
I made it run... I made it run on time... Once I had a railroad, Now I have none... Buddy, can you paradigm? (And I think the Brits spell the chemical element Al as "aluminium" - so their pronounciation is valid even if their spelling is recycled.) |
>Irritatingly the American pronounciation of Aluminum is the original and correct..dammit!<
Unfortunately, alumInium is the name preferred by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) for the element known as Al. " Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time. Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you paradigm?" ((I)) |
lawchick, I am just cracking up. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I live in Germany and I hear these all the time. What is funny is that Germans embrace English words (unlike the French, who have, I believe, passed laws to make sure that English words do not invade their language), especially when the English word is several syllables shorter than its German counterpart.
I'm too tired to think of specifics right now. The only one I can remember is "pro" which is short for "professor." How they adopted "pro" when in the U.S. we say "prof", I have no idea. schuler, the answer is of course "handy." I've never heard anyone say "mobile." |
Hausfrau: Mega geil!
Handy and Natel, whereas handy is used more often in spoken German. |
LOL some of these are too great! :)
hanl, I worked in the US division of a large Japanese electronics company, and for the project I worked on, we also were told to call our users "BUMs" for Business Unit Managers! Only, because we were all too aware of the connotations, we only called them that amongst the people in my department and in communication with Tokyo, and not to the BUMs themselves!! I have never heard PowerPoint slides called "viewgraphs". But in marketing, a set of these slides is often called a "deck", as in "I showed him the whole deck, and he has some revisions." Many of the others listed here, in Franglais and American, have annoyed me plenty, too... (Verbage: ugh!!) |
ggreen--have you seen the Japanese (and a few other nations') twists on the English language at www.engrish.com?
|
As far as "sensible=sensitive" is concerned, I learned that one from Jane Austen.
|
I live in Swiss Romande, we say Natel and Swiss Germany says Handy. I have no idea why for either of them.
When I first started working here in Switzerland and was eating in our restaurant (not to be confused with the cafeteria which over here means the place for coffee), I said to my colleagues that I wasn't too impressed with the food as it was loaded with preservatives. After a shocked pause, everyone burst out laughing. Preservatives in French is condoms! And one of the Franglais words that drives me nuts is "baskets" for sneakers. |
Methodology instead of method drives me crazy.
Also, there's a fashion TV show that always talks about fabrication instead of fabric and colouration instead of colour. Not exactly the same thing but they always describe clothes as being 'little', as in 'this little jacket', 'these little shoes', this little purse' (even if it's the size of a tugboat). It always makes me picture Barbie clothes. |
I have never met an Israeli who called "underwear" anything but "underwears."
I think it is kind of cute. |
Only somewhat on topic...one of my pet peeves is when someone whose English is imperfect peppers their conversation with slang.
There was a poster on Fodor's once who did not bother to punctuate, use proper grammar, capitalize, etc. but asked about where to get good "eats". That just made me crazy! If you're worldly enough to know English slang you're worldly enough to use periods correctly. |
From OP's list,
Resto = Restaurant Restaurant is also a French word so it shouldn't be on "a non native English" list. Bon ap = Bon Appetite This is also French. And correct spelling is Bon Appétit (no E at the end) When these are used in spoken French, I don't see any inconvenience. Schuler, Handy it is for German and Swiss German. I thought Natel was only for Swiss (German and French). Here around Geneva area(Suisse Romande) today it seems less and less people say Natel. We say probably more often le Portable like French or even le telephone mobile. Dacing = German use of word to mean discos. |
Wow, I have never heard/read "Natel" but then I can't say I'm very well-read in German. :-) Thanks for the tip, in case I ever run across it!
|
> "baskets" for sneakers.
or les teniss. |
Natel was originally a techinical term or commecial name (don't remember the details)that then became to be used to generally mean cell phone or mobile phone. Some people use the word knowing that's not the correct way.
|
Natel = Nationales Autotelefon(netz).
The word was introduced when the only avaiable mobile telephones were built into cars and cost more than the car itself. |
Kappa, I don't think the OP was trying to say these terms are wrong in French, only that in some environments where English is the working language but is spoken by a majority of non-native speakers, you get some very bizarre turns of phrase being used as though they were standard English. Indeed, the native English speakers often become so accustomed to these words that they start to use them too.
As a Brit working in Brussels (where such language usage is rife), I can very much sympathise with the OP... |
Talky Walkies for Walkie Talkies.
|
| All times are GMT -8. The time now is 06:27 PM. |