>>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?"

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.