This anglicism is common on used-car lots as a label on a bargain car that we would say was "priced to sell", though buyers should treat it with particular suspicion. Der Preishit surprises many English speakers, because the last four letters suggest a rude word. However this calque of price and the German sense of hit disturbs nobody in the used-car world, which in any case has a lingo all of its own, with expressions such as mit Klima (with air-conditioning) and mit Color (equipped with tinted-glass windows). Der Preishit is capitalized, hypenated, given male gender, inflected with -s- in the genitive and pronounced with an uvular -r-.
... Read More
Showing posts with label P-R. Show all posts
Showing posts with label P-R. Show all posts
Preishit, der
Pumpgun, die
This curious anglicism is an abridgement of the English term pump-action rifle. The handgrip of this type of rifle (or shotgun) can be slid back and forth in order to eject and chamber a round of ammunition, an action that is faster than either bolt-action or lever-action reloading. Die Pumpgun is capitalized, joined and given female gender and is inflected with -s- in the genitive.
... Read More
pink
Pink never refers in German to the plain pink colour denoted by the word in English, but is an abridgement of the English term shocking pink. The English word pink was probably inspired by the delicate pale reds of a flower, Dianthus gratianopolitanus, known in English as pinks and in German as the sommerblühenden Nelken. It is no accident that the German word for the same colour, rosa, is also derived from the observation and cultivation of garden flowers, in this case the rose. The most remarkable episode in the fashion history of pink/rosa was the fascination for decades with pink or "rosy" skin, particularly on the cheeks, and the sale of powders to achieve this effect. When I was young, stage make-up employed the reddest of such powders, rouge, to suggest an elderly lady still stuck in the fashion excesses of her youth, and I can remember a few granddames still left at the time who made up their faces this way. However this implication would probably be lost on audiences today. Shocking pink is a 20th-century invention, and may at some point in the future be used as a figure for a similar out-of-date fashion sense. Pink, which is a false friend, is inflected as a normal German adjective. ... Read More
Rowdytum, das
This term for hooliganism was one of the most comical expressions of East German communism, though the implications were hardly funny for the person labelled as der Rowdy. The East German courts convicted and imprisoned protesters for das Rowdytum, a catch-all offence that embraced almost any authority-defying behaviour in a public place.
This Anglicism harks back to the 19th century - the days of Karl Marx - when a rowdy was indeed a disorderly young man, as for example in a passage from the Nottingham Date Book (1852): ....
By the 20th century, it had been used so often as a figure of speech that its meaning was much weakened: a rowdy child is merely one who is playing vigorously, and a rowdy party is one where the music is loud: in both cases the implication is that I am annoyed at the noise (but could be over-sensitive).
Since German has retained the old sense, and only the old sense, the word is a false friend. The Duden Fremdwörterbuch no longer has das Rowdytum (if it ever had it) and only has der Rowdy. Das Rowdytum, which has acquired a standard German nominalizing suffix, is capitalized, given neuter gender and inflected with -s- in the genitive.
... Read More
Pony, das
In German use, das Pony is generally restricted to the tinier riding-school horse, and is not applied to what was once called a cow-pony, the small but wiry horse used by the cowboy. This Anglicism undergoes a major vowel change from an English dipthong to a very pure German -o-. At Gartenhaus, a hamlet southwest of Magdeburg, a riding-school sign advertises Ponnyreiten with a double -n-, a phonetic spelling that catches the pronunciation rather better. Though not strictly speaking an Anglicism, the lookalike word of masculine gender, der Pony, is a false friend for many translators. Der Pony arose as an abbrevation of der Ponyfrisur and means a fringe hanging over the eyes like that worn by every well-groomed Shetland pony. For any educated German speaker, there is no reason for confusion, but English speakers who are not sensitive to word genders may be tripped up. A BBC report notably muddled this in the summer of 2005, quoting German newspapers as saying that a woman suspect wore her hair in a pony-tail. In fact, the suspect had her collar-length hair styled to fall over her forehead. The BBC account was quietly corrected. ... Read More
Rocker, der
One of the most interesting Anglicisms, since it has two distinct meanings in German. The most common sense of der Rocker - a member of a motorcycle gang - conserves an almost forgotten term from 1960s England, when gang warfare broke out between the Mods, a motor-scooter group, and the Rockers, a motorcycle gang. Der Rocker of today is not connected to the English gang of long ago, but is usually a member of the German branch of the Hell's Angels. Because the matching term in English is obsolescent, the motorcyclist sense is a false friend and effectively a pseudo-Anglicism. Derived terms include die Rockerbande, die Rockergruppe, die Rockergang (all motorcycle gang), das Rockermädchen, die Rockerbraut (both biker gang moll) and die Rockerkluft (motorcycle-gang clothing). The other sense, often an abbreviation of der Altrocker, connotes an old-fashioned rock musician and is readily intelligible in 21st century English. Capitalized, given masculine gender and pronounced with an uvular -r-. ... Read More
Ressource, die
Not only capitalized, given feminine gender and pronounced with an uvular -r-, but respelled by the Duden with two -s-, die Ressource is mostly used in the plural and in a strictly economic sense to mean inputs. High-falutin' writers may use die Ressourcen as a term for funding, but the term is genuinely useful to embrace other economic resources such as raw materials, energy, land, water and air. Computer gamers also select Ressourcen before playing life-simulation games. The stress is on the syllable -re-, not on the second syllable as in English. ... Read More
Playplace, der
Offered by letter-writer Martin Hanisch in the Hamburger Abendblatt (2007-09-11) as an example of a particularly stupid Anglicism. He said he saw Playplace on a McDonald's hamburger restaurant in south Hamburg (where else?) and wondered if it was a calque for der Spielplatz. Probably not. A look at the McDonald's Canada website shows an indoor play area called a "Play Place" at restaurants in that country, apparently equivalent to a Playland at a US McDonald's. ... Read More
Point of Interest, das
Even in English, the meaning of this cartography term is not exactly self-evident. Whereas a "place of interest" usually connotes a location in the land that would reward a visit because it is interesting, a point of interest that is recorded on a sat-nav device may be something dull and entirely uninteresting, such as a petrol station, a parking building or a business that has paid to be thus promoted. On a visit by road to Munich, I was surprised to find that the rental car's sat-nav listed dozens of points of interest, but the museums and palaces were not among them. Sat-navs connect a series of dots (junctions and curves) to create routes: anything off the route is of no interest to the device, but may be meaningful to a human being. Oddly, German has a richer vocabulary than English to describe how the significance of places or things may be enhanced by our "Erkenntnisse", yet German sat-nav designers have failed to find a truly German term for the point of interest. They have thus forged an anglicism out of the English term: das Point of Interest. Even odder is the pluralization of this term in German, with the plural S added to both "point" and "interest". Examples: Sehr gefragt sind ... die Points of Interests wie Hotels oder Restaurants (Andreas List in Pressetexte, 2007-08-16); Die Software kann ... Points of Interests (POIs) aus verschiedenen Wählbaren Kategorien - etwa Blitzer - darstellen (Felix Rehwald, Hamburger Abendblatt, 2007-07). Neuter gender, twice capitalized and pronounced with an uvular -r-. ... Read More
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
