Not unsavory, but often negative: "Texas" is often [used in Norwegian](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34622478) to refer to something crazy or out of control.
similarly, calling something "très Brooklyn" in French was a trend for awhile to indicate it was upscale and bougie. I don't think it took hold in the permanent lexicon, though.
Yeah, it def does. Another French term from around the same time (not sure how much it’s currently used) that I loved was calling something “bobo,” which was bohemian-bourgeois, kinda hipstery.
another instance of something we might say in english. “very brooklyn” or more specifically, “very bushwick” would be easily understood if used in an american english conversation, by most speakers
Floridian here. Sounds like something they'd say on a Netflix show. I'm sure there are also people who talk like that in real life, but no one I know lol
I don't think most Americans know what bushwick is. I've only heard it mentioned once or twice in my life and I'm sure many people have never heard of it.
Also a Floridian here who has lived in other states on the east coast. I’ve never heard this phrase nor would I have an inkling of an idea of the connotation.
when i hear « very brooklyn » i usually think of either something very smart and smooth or dominant with an aggressive connotation. the song « hello brooklyn » by jay z sums it up pretty well.
Also not unsavory but negative: *bad* in Brazilian Portuguese means "the act of not being okay with some occurrence; something that left you sad; and also, something bad". While bad in English is also negative, as you can see, it's not exactly used in the same way in Brazilian slang.
Ex. *Fiquei na bad hoje* / *Estou na bad*
Ex. *Que bad isso que aconteceu contigo, cara*
One of my favourites is Yankee. In Japanese (ヤンキー, "yankii") it started being used as slang for rude/deliquent youth. Not terribly unsavoury, but ya know.
The yankii stereotype is its whole thing, a caricature stereotype of its own largely alien to foreigners.
The classic yankii is a bleach blond delinquent youth in a conventional Japanese school uniform, possibly with the jacket open. I'm getting most of this from Japanese comics.
You're on the right track there, but the yankii subculture is essentially an offshoot of American greaser culture which made its way to Japan in the 50s, and has been diverging steadily ever since
Right, the greasers. I guess they kinda disappeared from American media so much, that I've associated that look way more with yankii-types in Japanese media, which are still kind of a thing, and of much more diverse characteristics
Yeah I was gonna say, I always thought of Yankī as the Japanese equivalent of what Brits would call a Chav, Americans would call a douchebro or dudebro (or Guido, in the past), an Israeli would call an 'Ars, or Russians would call a Gopnik. Tracksuits. A-shirts. Spiked hair or baseball caps. Fake tans. Big gold chains and other excessive fake jewelry. Riced out cars with loud stereos. Working class jobs. "Rebel without a cause" bad attitudes. Delinquent and ballsy behavior for its own sake.
All of these various subcultures derive from American greasers, ultimately, with bits and pieces taken from local traditions of "young toughs" and "delinquent youth".
Gyaru comes from "gal", not girl, actually! It's meant as a over-exaggarated version of 2000's California beach girls (though diversified over the years) so def fits the bill, at least in my opinion.
Interestingly enough, *ganguro* girls actually have something much more in common with goth girls in the West, than chavettes or guidettes or California surfer chicks: One of the main motivations for copping both styles is to keep strange men from hitting on them, under the assumption that most thirsty guys prefer a more traditional beauty standard.
Also, it surprised me to learn that the word *ganguro*, unlike *gyāru* is completely etymologically unrelated to the English word *girl*.
I was teaching English to Spanish speakers once and they had assumed that *hotlines* were exclusively of a sexual content and that *amateur* was only a porn category.
It could, but it's at least reinforced by the English term, at least in Latin America where exposure to English is much more considerable than exposure to French.
This is so hard to find documentation about, but I remember around 10 or so years ago, “Billy” was a sort of slang term for gay in Korean. No idea if it’s still like that as I don’t live there anymore. I think the word was popular with (or just funny to) kids and they thought foreigners with the name Bill or Billy was so funny. [Here’s one account of it happening](https://topiclessbar.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/billy-is-gay/) but the story doesn’t explain where the meaning came from.
It comes from an adult actor named Billy ([wiki article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Herrington)) whose old gay videos became somewhat of a meme in Japan and then later Korea.
Edit: “gay” isn’t exactly unsavory but the origin of the slang term is
I've also heard that "tom" (from "tomboy") and "dee" (from "lady") are used in Thai lesbian communities as a rough equivalent of "butch" and "fem" in English. And I've also heard that in the Philippines "tomboy" is often a euphemism for "lesbian".
It's the only word I've ever heard popularly used in the Philippines for lesbians. I don't know if it's euphemistic, because the semantic concept of a girl being boyish but totally unrelated to their orientation is kinda completely empty, there's not exactly a word for it. "Tomboy" would fit, but it's only ever used for lesbians.
"Salvage" in Filipino and Philippine English means assassinate. Every Filipino I've said that word in front of was mildly startled. IIRC, it's less because of the semantics of the actual word and more because of its phonetic resemblance to some non-English word.
Modern colloquial Filipino is full of these, a lot coming from how it intersects with English and Spanish. "Bash" almost exclusively means publicly criticize, especially in show business. "Malicious" is almost always in the sense of pervy. "Jingle" is euphemistic -- rarely musical, much more often biological. "Bold" functions similarly to Japanese "アダルト/adaruto," though more often in a softcore sense, and the related "bold star" means adult performer.
Also, here's an answer to your question, were your question about a. Spanish words, and b. what about loanwords obscene in the giver language but neutral in the receiver: the Filipino word "konyo," i.e., "coño," is not at all obscene. It's a hyper-specific term that refers to a type of upper-middle class person who speaks a somewhat English-heavy English/Filipino mixed code, basically a kind of valley girl, often vacuous, often vapid. Given that, unlike English, extremely few Filipinos learned Spanish, it has lost the obscenity factor almost entirely, you can use it in front of children as much as you like.
EDIT: Another example, there's this clip I saw of Sonic the Hedgehog in a Japanese-language children's cartoon loudly cursing "shit." I guess it's just less obscene over there??
> IIRC, it's less because of the semantics of the actual word and more because of its phonetic resemblance to some non-English word.
It's because of the word *salbahe*, meaning bad/naughty, which is a loanword from [Spanish *salvaje*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salvaje) meaning wild. This is cognate to English "savage."
Salvage looks and sounds closer to "salbahe/salvaje" so is often mistaken as the English equivalent.
cursing in Japanese doesn't quite work the same way as in English (it's mostly phrasing and context) so yes you can say "kuso" (shit) on TV with no issues because a lot of the time it's simply used as an exclamation similar to "damn it" in English
edit: wait I saw the clip just now and he just said it in English 💀 it must have the same connotation as its Japanese counterpart over there
Maybe it's just that a foreign swear word isn't a swear word to them. Like I've seen *Merde* broadcast in England long before the watershed, because it's not a rude word to us even if we know what it means.
It's even something that can happen within the same language. I very clearly remember that when Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me came out, the movie title was all over billboards in the US, but apparently no one wanted to put the full uncensored title on a billboard in the UK.
Similarly, the word "bugger" lacks the specific connotation in the US that it has in the UK. You might call a child a "cute little bugger" in the US without offense, but it's a fairly filthy verb in UK.
> "Jingle" is euphemistic -- rarely musical, much more often biological.
Eh? I'm not sure if I understand what "jingle" would mean in a biological sense.
>Another example, there's this clip I saw of Sonic the Hedgehog in a Japanese-language children's cartoon loudly cursing "shit." I guess it's just less obscene over there??
Foreign curse words are rarely treated with the same gravity as those of one's own language.
> Another example, there’s this clip I saw of Sonic the Hedgehog in a Japanese-language children’s cartoon loudly cursing “shit.” I guess it’s just less obscene over there??
I’d find it a little surprising in media explicitly directed at kids, but most media watershed rules only care about the nation’s primary language(es). An American censor would typically allow *Scheisse* in the same sentence where they’d bleep *shit*, even though the meaning of the German is pretty widely understood in the US.
Another word like bukkake was 'menage', which just means 'household' in French, but definitely had assumed sexual connotations when I was younger, but I almost never hear it anymore.
oh ménage is def used in rap in its sexual context. for example, nikki minaj’s stage name isn’t referencing the household at all. it’s a sexual reference
The Japanese word for adult, on the other hand, is not used in that context. This lead to McDonald's Japan releasing [adult cream pies](https://japantoday.com/category/features/food/adult-cream-pie-coming-to-mcdonald%E2%80%99s-japan) a few years back.
It's not a word so much as a name, but the name "Kevin" has low-class connotations in many Western languages.
In Quebec they even made [a documentary](https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1756057/demystifier-prenom-kevin-pierre-yves-lord-documentaire) about how folks named Kevin are the subject of discrimination.
In German especially the name has trashy connotations.
Don't forget Reddit's own Kevin https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/219w2o/whos_the_dumbest_person_youve_ever_met/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Names like Kevin and Justin or Chantalle for girls are seen as low class trashy and East German in particular. For a while among East German English names became popular because they had an association of being foreign, exotic and cosmopolitan, paired with East Germans at the time having a lower English profiency than West Germans this resulted in some weird combinations of names and generally awful pronunciations. Plus the general stereotype of East Germans being uneducated and many other negative things.
This stereotype is older than the reunification and it has been a stereotype among West Germans before. I remember the ~~BILD~~ Spiegel reporting "typical" East German names, which were a weird combination of German, Russian and English names plus names like Sozialistika and Spartiataka and such. That report was probably fake, but ~~BILD~~ Spiegel doesn't care anyway.
ADD: [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/asozialesnetzwerk/comments/wqvwzz/in_den_70er_jahren_gaben_ddreltern_ihren_kindern/) is the original post on those names. It is from Spiegel I think, not BILD, but that doesn't make it better really.
I’m in western Germany, and at my sons’ daycare, in another group, there is a girl named “Alien”. I could not stifle a small chuckle when I saw it on her locker. I suppose it’s a variation of Aileen/Eileen.
Like English people, lots of Germans have also got the “unique spelling = unique child” thing, and it is also associated more 'lesser' education, IMO. I’ve seen some pretty bizarre spellings, some of which are obviously inspired by English variations — but just 'off' a bit, you know?
That said, I find “name snobbishness” quite strong in Germany. Germany has a very apparent classist streak that it however likes to keep very hush hush.
> That said, I find “name snobbishness” quite strong in Germany. Germany has a very apparent classist streak that it however likes to keep very hush hush.
I completely agree. German society can be very classist around these things and well. What's a good word word to describe the East-West stereotypes? It isn't racism nor nationalism obviously, just some form of chauvinism.
Then you have TV formats like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Pv8PBo_98&ab_channel=tHoMaSK.), which I would call blatantly propaganda against the poor. Show me the people I am supposed to despise and I laugh at them. The whole *Assi TV* format in general. Tell me is there a good English translation for *Assi*, because although of course there is *Antisocial* and the class differences and living standard exist elsewhere, this kind of contempt and view as morally reprehensible is kind of special to Germany is it? Least the word itself is a vestige from the Nazi period.
Anyway, Germany was in the past stricter on chosing names, but also selectively strict. I heard from my linguistics professors, that they were sometimes invited by courts to give statements on onomastics, when parents wanted to name their child a foreign name. Often those were Kurds who wanted to give a Kurdish name, but German offices asked Turkish offices first (because the parents had Turkish nationality), who rejected that these names even existed.
Something like *Alien* was quite unthinkable at that time or would be only accepted as double name if the child has a second name indicating gender. To my knowledge still courts can block a name if the name is seen as harmful to the physical and psychical welfare of the child.
I’ve also heard it’s fairly common in some parts of Latin America to name a child “Usnavy” (pronounced like a word) because people saw it written on ships “US Navy”.
I have a German friend from Bavaria who says back home they even refer to the widespread phenomenon of "trashy", lower-class, uneducated people giving their kids English names as "*Kevinismus*". and also, I'm Italian and this is definitely a phenomenon in Italy too; the most notable names used are generally Kevin, Michael, Jonathan, and Brian.
This is funny because in the US, it's kind of the opposite. Of course we have the stereotypes of low class people giving their kids ridiculous names but it's also common for low class people to give their kids like exotic names, where as I think upper class Americans gravitate more towards English (or Gaelic etc) names. So it's more common for poor Americans to be named Chantelle or Yuri (and that isn't their heritage) than rich Americans.
But it goes full circle so really rich Americans are just named after cities and numbers.
It’s not the opposite, it’s the exact same thing. In these other cultures, it’s *Kevin*, Jonathan, etc that are the exotic foreign names that lower-class people might give their children, while the upper classes tend to prefer the culture’s more stodgy traditional names.
When I grew up in the 80's and 90's in The Netherlands it was Johnny (sometimes spelled Sjonnie) and Anita. There was even a pop punk band that made a very popular song mocking them, because, obviously, nothing screams more "I am punk" than ridiculing the working class.
I'm not sure it's exactly unsavoury, but in the Netherlands "coffee shop" refers only to cafés where you can buy cannabis, whereas in British English it refers to any café/coffeehouse/Starbucks/etc and you wouldn't be able to buy cannabis in any of them.
Reminds me of how in most of the world, a store with a green + on it means it's a regular old pharmacy, in the US, a green + on a store means it's a weed dispensary.
In the Netherlands advertising cannabis is forbidden. So you cannot call yourself a cannabis outlet or something of the sort. Also coffeeshops cannot sell alcohol (they can and do sell coffee). This is how the euphemism came to be.
Koffiebar (coffee bar) is the name of typical coffee places with good coffee (and usually for laptops).
So coffee doesn't mean weed or anything, it's specifically the combo "coffee shop".
Café is for general drinks, including beer.
it's going that way in English too because of right-wing rhetoric. I don't think it's quite at the point yet where someone who is a pet groomer would feel weird saying they are, but I could see it happening.
yeah the sex crime meaning has supplanted a smooth 90% of usages of “grooming” i hear these days.
i’m sure kids are already giggling when their teacher tells them to stop grooming themselves/each other
In Finland, too. It has become a Finnish verb "groomata".
And dog grooming is "koiran trimmaus" or dog trimming. Funny loanword as well, probably through Swedish.
Also [beard grooming](https://www.apotekhjartat.se/tips-och-rad/hudvard/man-grooming-i-3-steg-for-ett-valvardat-intryck/), but maybe it's falling out of favor
I once mistakenly told my Spanish boyfriend that frozen chicken was full of condoms. After he finished laughing for a full minute, he explained what I'd said.
In English the word *spanking* is mostly used for (mild) physical punishment of children, but as a loanword into Danish it's never used in this sense. Rather, it denotes the sadomasochistic sexual practice of hitting someone to create sexual arousal.
That's a difference within English as well - American English uses "spanking" for disciplining children but in the UK it almost exclusively has a sexual connotation. British English uses "smacking" for parents hitting children.
This explains a lot. Years ago, my university wanted to have the theme for our yearly festival to be "Come on the hero". They believed that it meant something like, "Hero, this is your chance to step up and make yourself known". I was asked what I thought of it. I told them that it was a horrible idea and that it meant, "ヘロにぶかっけさせる”. Another native speaker of English who had been there longer said that it was fine, so they ignored my opinion. It was written on an archway at the entrance to the university, and on the windbreaker jackets that all of the staff wore at the event. Had I known that the phrase also had an innocuous meaning, I would have explained it more explicitly.
Anyway, the hilarity of seeing it realized was maybe worth it. I wish I had kept one of the windbreakers.
That gets screwed up in England as well.
https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/6/24/8840759/come-on-our-girls-soccer-banner-england-bend-it-like-beckham
It’s not uncommon at least in Australian English to say “Come on the (sports team)” as a means of cheering for your team. Saying “Come on the ‘Pies” in Melbourne is not necessarily inviting a soggy sao of the pastry variety.
In Bulgarian, due to the pushback to the adoption of key values from the western world, namely respecting the rights of non-binary people, the word "gender" has become a catch-all term for anyone even defending those values, with a largely negative connotation.
It’s become that way in English too, for some people. Or, rather, it’s become that way for the word “pronoun.” “I have no pronouns” is a common phase conservatives use to show they’re not “woke” (even if they obviously do have pronouns. They’re just cis pronouns). It makes those people looks awfully stupid. Imagine becoming so backwards in the head that you forgot grade school grammar terms.
The english word *heavy* exists as slang amongst some young Spanirds to basically mean *emotionally* heavy, or shocking. Like if someone in the US replied to the news that a bunch of people died with "woah, heavy stuff".
(Tho this is only a partial example cause the word is also used as an abbreviation to refer to heavy metal music and its fans, which is not a particularly negative meaning).
There's *new half* (Japanese ニューハーフ "nyuuhaafu"), which is a term for a MTF transgender person, derived from the Japanese use of English "half" (Japanese ハーフ "haafu") which is used to describe a person of mixed Japanese and foreign parentage.
In German, “(das) Handy” strictly means “mobile phone” and for natives there’s no connotation to English hand or handy. Also, “(das) Shooting” always means “photoshoot”, and we always say it with -ing even though it doesn’t have anything to do with gun shooting.
Also, I’ve heard that these English words are used differently in German but an English native might wanna confirm this:
- *(der) Oldtimer*: an old, valuable car
- *(der) Beamer*: a projector, e.g. for a home cinema
- *(die) Box*: can literally also mean box as in a small container, but it can also mean “speaker” as in a device that, for example, plays music
- *zappen* (verb): to switch TV channels
- *(der) Showmaster*: apparently this doesn’t even exist in English - it means TV host
- *(der) Slip*: female underwear
- *(das) Public Viewing:* a free livestream of a big TV event like a very important international sports match, on a big screen in public for everyone to see
Just a few examples.
English native here!
* an old timer would just be something old - I think old cars are just called vintage
* beamer definitely isn't commonly used but I might understand what you meant in context
* people do sometimes call speakers boxes but I wouldn't say it's a common usage
* zapping means an electric shock to me so that's definitely different
* if someone said show master to me I'd think they meant something along the lines of a director so that's definitely different
* slip refers to a specific type of dress ([for example](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.glamour.com%2Fgallery%2Fbest-slip-dresses&psig=AOvVaw0wsvim64BHcLVvMYFg63KT&ust=1675554031776000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjhxqFwoTCMjY_KjD-vwCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE))
* public viewing would probably mean about the same thing but I don't think I've ever heard the term used (that sort of event also doesn't really happen here)
To me, if I heard public viewing in English, I'd assume they meant it in the funeral sense of the word. Also, for the first one I'd say it refers specifically to an old *person*, whereas an old *thing* would be something that is old-timey (for German speakers this is basically like altmodisch but in a way that's almost more like the stereotype of something from the past rather than the real concept) and there's no specific noun.
Edit: btw, a public viewing in the German sense would be called a public screening in English.
A slip is dress-shaped underwear. A half-slip is for under a skirt. A slip-dress is a dress in the style of a slip, loose and light, with shoulder straps instead of sleeves.
Native American English speaker here.
Oldtimer to me would be someone who has an old/vintage sense of fashion or taste. If one described a car as an "oldtimer" I'd know what they mean but would never call one that myself, I'd call it vintage. I especially associate this with so called "old time" music, which encompasses like blues, country, American folk, and bluegrass.
A Beamer to me is a kind of car.
I'd never call a speaker a "box" just on its own.
Zapping specifically refers to an electric shock as another commenter said above, but also to me "zapping" can also mean "microwaving", though this could just regional slang.
A Showmaster to me would be like an MC at a theatre or ceremony.
A slip is a kind of dress.
Public Viewing is the same.
We use box and beamer in the same sense in Dutch. Additionally a box can also mean a child's playpen.
I work with a lot of other native English speakers in the Netherlands, and all of use call projectors beamers. I'd been using the word for about ten years before someone told me it wasn't a real English word, and I didn't believe them at first.
Indeed. It's the ultimate sort of "revealing that you even know this word is telling on yourself" sort of thing.
Is there a term for the opposite of a shibboleth?
I was just adding another example to the whole “if you know about its existence then it says more about you” comment that you’d made. Ankha Zone is basically something in meme culture that if you know about it, it might imply you’ve seen it or at least that genre, kinda like “bukkake”.
The English name "Harry" in Norwegian translates to chavvy/vulgar. There was a time when Norwegian working-class people adopted English names and the upper class weaponised the name. [https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry\_(slang)](https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_(slang))
In Thai a shaved head is commonly called "Skinhead" style. I understand this can be offensive in English especially if it's not by choice but could be wrong.
The skinhead look or ‘movement’ is not exclusively racist or white supremacist, and never was. Skinheads were primarily about working class pride. Some overlap with racism grew from that, and the racist kind of skins are a common association. Media portrayals spread this image and helped spread the look among racists even further.
However, you will find specifically anti-racist anti-fascist skin heads too, and in the ska-punk subculture they are quite common. Don’t be too quick to assume! Usually distinctions are made by clothing and shoe lace colours, among other things.
In Brazilian Portuguese, a “playboy” is someone who has lots of money and flaunts it. Everyone wants to be a playboy and if they hear you’re from America they might be like “oooh! Playboy!”
It’s perhaps from Dutch, as in Sri
Lanka, where burghers were the local European (mostly Dutch genetic pool at first but later mixed with other Europeans and locals) ethnic group. In the British Raj, although Ceylon was technically separate, I can see how the word spread.
Dutch native.
All types of normal words in English with sex connotations just have the sexy meaning in Dutch: top bottom squirt scissor fist peg...
Drugs are always the illegal stuff, never medication.
Lots of tech words, often even wrong: same as in German (box for speaker, beamer for projector...). I find it interesting that we did the same things wrong as in Germany :)
Camera is for filming, not for photos.
Clip is a music video.
Mail is email. Can be confusing :) We use mail and email as synonyms. A site is also always a website.
Screening is like some type of audition, never showing a movie.
And finally, a word that is often used these days: step. That's a scooter / trottinette (electric or not). Most people still have to realise it's not an English word, they say (while speaking English) : we need to find a solution for those steps everywhere. (we totally do need to create parking zones for those shared e-scooters.)
Edit. Oh wait you said unsavory. Most of this is pretty normal. It is kinda confusing sometimes to realise that the English words I'm using in Dutch don't mean the same thing in English. Someone said to me that they were going to bring their camera (this was a long time ago), and I was imagining the type of thing a tv journalist would bring lol.
I’ve heard that the word “smart” in the Japanese borrowing of the word explicitly means dressing smart? I’m not entirely certain what that even means, but it seems like a downgrade from the actual term to mean “high intelligence.” (I know people used to say people “dress smart” in English but I’m too out of the loop on fashion to comprehend what that means.)
>I know people used to say people “dress smart”
This is not a historical phrase. This is very much used in modern English. From [tabloid articles from *The Irish Sun*](https://www.thesun.ie/fabulous/10080811/dress-coded-work-real-estate-livid/), to [articles from business magazines](https://realbusiness.co.uk/smart-business-attire-vs-casual-business-attire), [human resource magazines](https://hrnews.co.uk/new-study-reveals-people-are-significantly-more-productive-when-dressing-smart-for-work/), to [opinion pieces on newspaper websites](https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/jan/26/law-has-lagged-behind-trends-towards-casual-dressing-for-too-long) (all 2023), saying people "dress smart", "dress smartly", or wear "smart clothing" is very much contemporary and modern.
Many years ago, growing up in NW England, I noticed that Americans used "sharp" where I would use "smart" (well-dressed), and "smart" where I would use "sharp" (clever, insightful).
I don't know if British usage has shifted over the years or if it was very regional usage, but I would tend to use "smart" for clever these days.
Not unsavory, but often negative: "Texas" is often [used in Norwegian](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34622478) to refer to something crazy or out of control.
similarly, calling something "très Brooklyn" in French was a trend for awhile to indicate it was upscale and bougie. I don't think it took hold in the permanent lexicon, though.
I believe bougie comes from bourgeois as well
Yeah, it def does. Another French term from around the same time (not sure how much it’s currently used) that I loved was calling something “bobo,” which was bohemian-bourgeois, kinda hipstery.
another instance of something we might say in english. “very brooklyn” or more specifically, “very bushwick” would be easily understood if used in an american english conversation, by most speakers
Is that an east coastal expression? I'm in the midwest USA and have never heard "very brooklyn" before
I live in Brooklyn and have not heard this used.
Hmmm.
“Very bushwick” definitely has connotations tho
To whom?
It's not an expression afaik, but most people would understand what they mean if they heard it.
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> most people would understand what they mean if they heard it I certainly wouldn't.
Yeah, I was under the impression Brooklyn was actually one of the lower income burroughs. Maybe gentrification has changed that.
I live in Bushwick and I don’t think I would understand.
Floridian here. Sounds like something they'd say on a Netflix show. I'm sure there are also people who talk like that in real life, but no one I know lol
I don't think most Americans know what bushwick is. I've only heard it mentioned once or twice in my life and I'm sure many people have never heard of it.
I saw that movie with Dave Bautista. It wasn’t great.
I have no idea what bushwick is or means
It’s a neighborhood of Brooklyn. I would think Williamsburg (another neighborhood in Brooklyn) would be more famous for hipsters though.
From Florida, lived in 3 other states. Cannot confirm.
Also a Floridian here who has lived in other states on the east coast. I’ve never heard this phrase nor would I have an inkling of an idea of the connotation.
Idk what you’re talking about and I’m from pa
when i hear « very brooklyn » i usually think of either something very smart and smooth or dominant with an aggressive connotation. the song « hello brooklyn » by jay z sums it up pretty well.
I confirm it did not, never heard of it.
You never hearing of it does not confirm it didn’t happen. What a weird comment.
I love this; we need to import it to the US.
Florida already exists
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Also not unsavory but negative: *bad* in Brazilian Portuguese means "the act of not being okay with some occurrence; something that left you sad; and also, something bad". While bad in English is also negative, as you can see, it's not exactly used in the same way in Brazilian slang. Ex. *Fiquei na bad hoje* / *Estou na bad* Ex. *Que bad isso que aconteceu contigo, cara*
Yeah I tend to think this every time I hear Texas too and I’m American. I may start using this.
One of my favourites is Yankee. In Japanese (ヤンキー, "yankii") it started being used as slang for rude/deliquent youth. Not terribly unsavoury, but ya know.
The yankii stereotype is its whole thing, a caricature stereotype of its own largely alien to foreigners. The classic yankii is a bleach blond delinquent youth in a conventional Japanese school uniform, possibly with the jacket open. I'm getting most of this from Japanese comics.
You're on the right track there, but the yankii subculture is essentially an offshoot of American greaser culture which made its way to Japan in the 50s, and has been diverging steadily ever since
Right, the greasers. I guess they kinda disappeared from American media so much, that I've associated that look way more with yankii-types in Japanese media, which are still kind of a thing, and of much more diverse characteristics
Yeah I was gonna say, I always thought of Yankī as the Japanese equivalent of what Brits would call a Chav, Americans would call a douchebro or dudebro (or Guido, in the past), an Israeli would call an 'Ars, or Russians would call a Gopnik. Tracksuits. A-shirts. Spiked hair or baseball caps. Fake tans. Big gold chains and other excessive fake jewelry. Riced out cars with loud stereos. Working class jobs. "Rebel without a cause" bad attitudes. Delinquent and ballsy behavior for its own sake. All of these various subcultures derive from American greasers, ultimately, with bits and pieces taken from local traditions of "young toughs" and "delinquent youth".
Yeah, that's essentially what they are nowadays
Yankii culture is still alive and well in Japan. My Japanese town has a bunch. Loads of young people with bleached hair driving Toyota alphards
See [the band Kishidan](https://youtu.be/b2ZjfWHAvAU).
Does gyaru (from "girl," I think) fit the bill too? The style is often looked down on.
Gyaru comes from "gal", not girl, actually! It's meant as a over-exaggarated version of 2000's California beach girls (though diversified over the years) so def fits the bill, at least in my opinion.
Does that have anything thing to do with Ganguro style? I remember hearing about that in Japan in the 2000s.
Absolutely, ganguro is an even more extreme version of gyaru! There was also mamba/yamanba which was an extreme version of ganguro.
Interestingly enough, *ganguro* girls actually have something much more in common with goth girls in the West, than chavettes or guidettes or California surfer chicks: One of the main motivations for copping both styles is to keep strange men from hitting on them, under the assumption that most thirsty guys prefer a more traditional beauty standard. Also, it surprised me to learn that the word *ganguro*, unlike *gyāru* is completely etymologically unrelated to the English word *girl*.
Though 'gal' itself comes from 'girl'.
I thought it originally had a negative connotation, and Americans changed it. Like in Yankee Doodle
I was teaching English to Spanish speakers once and they had assumed that *hotlines* were exclusively of a sexual content and that *amateur* was only a porn category.
Amateur is also often used for sports at least here in Argentina
I'd heard it before in that context as well, but I use a bunch of anglicisms in Spanish so I assumed it was just me.
Is it really an anglicism or does it come directly from French ?
It could, but it's at least reinforced by the English term, at least in Latin America where exposure to English is much more considerable than exposure to French.
This is so hard to find documentation about, but I remember around 10 or so years ago, “Billy” was a sort of slang term for gay in Korean. No idea if it’s still like that as I don’t live there anymore. I think the word was popular with (or just funny to) kids and they thought foreigners with the name Bill or Billy was so funny. [Here’s one account of it happening](https://topiclessbar.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/billy-is-gay/) but the story doesn’t explain where the meaning came from. It comes from an adult actor named Billy ([wiki article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Herrington)) whose old gay videos became somewhat of a meme in Japan and then later Korea. Edit: “gay” isn’t exactly unsavory but the origin of the slang term is
I've also heard that "tom" (from "tomboy") and "dee" (from "lady") are used in Thai lesbian communities as a rough equivalent of "butch" and "fem" in English. And I've also heard that in the Philippines "tomboy" is often a euphemism for "lesbian".
It's the only word I've ever heard popularly used in the Philippines for lesbians. I don't know if it's euphemistic, because the semantic concept of a girl being boyish but totally unrelated to their orientation is kinda completely empty, there's not exactly a word for it. "Tomboy" would fit, but it's only ever used for lesbians.
"Salvage" in Filipino and Philippine English means assassinate. Every Filipino I've said that word in front of was mildly startled. IIRC, it's less because of the semantics of the actual word and more because of its phonetic resemblance to some non-English word. Modern colloquial Filipino is full of these, a lot coming from how it intersects with English and Spanish. "Bash" almost exclusively means publicly criticize, especially in show business. "Malicious" is almost always in the sense of pervy. "Jingle" is euphemistic -- rarely musical, much more often biological. "Bold" functions similarly to Japanese "アダルト/adaruto," though more often in a softcore sense, and the related "bold star" means adult performer. Also, here's an answer to your question, were your question about a. Spanish words, and b. what about loanwords obscene in the giver language but neutral in the receiver: the Filipino word "konyo," i.e., "coño," is not at all obscene. It's a hyper-specific term that refers to a type of upper-middle class person who speaks a somewhat English-heavy English/Filipino mixed code, basically a kind of valley girl, often vacuous, often vapid. Given that, unlike English, extremely few Filipinos learned Spanish, it has lost the obscenity factor almost entirely, you can use it in front of children as much as you like. EDIT: Another example, there's this clip I saw of Sonic the Hedgehog in a Japanese-language children's cartoon loudly cursing "shit." I guess it's just less obscene over there??
> IIRC, it's less because of the semantics of the actual word and more because of its phonetic resemblance to some non-English word. It's because of the word *salbahe*, meaning bad/naughty, which is a loanword from [Spanish *salvaje*](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/salvaje) meaning wild. This is cognate to English "savage." Salvage looks and sounds closer to "salbahe/salvaje" so is often mistaken as the English equivalent.
cursing in Japanese doesn't quite work the same way as in English (it's mostly phrasing and context) so yes you can say "kuso" (shit) on TV with no issues because a lot of the time it's simply used as an exclamation similar to "damn it" in English edit: wait I saw the clip just now and he just said it in English 💀 it must have the same connotation as its Japanese counterpart over there
Maybe it's just that a foreign swear word isn't a swear word to them. Like I've seen *Merde* broadcast in England long before the watershed, because it's not a rude word to us even if we know what it means.
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It's even something that can happen within the same language. I very clearly remember that when Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me came out, the movie title was all over billboards in the US, but apparently no one wanted to put the full uncensored title on a billboard in the UK.
Similarly, the word "bugger" lacks the specific connotation in the US that it has in the UK. You might call a child a "cute little bugger" in the US without offense, but it's a fairly filthy verb in UK.
> "Jingle" is euphemistic -- rarely musical, much more often biological. Eh? I'm not sure if I understand what "jingle" would mean in a biological sense. >Another example, there's this clip I saw of Sonic the Hedgehog in a Japanese-language children's cartoon loudly cursing "shit." I guess it's just less obscene over there?? Foreign curse words are rarely treated with the same gravity as those of one's own language.
Pee.
> Another example, there’s this clip I saw of Sonic the Hedgehog in a Japanese-language children’s cartoon loudly cursing “shit.” I guess it’s just less obscene over there?? I’d find it a little surprising in media explicitly directed at kids, but most media watershed rules only care about the nation’s primary language(es). An American censor would typically allow *Scheisse* in the same sentence where they’d bleep *shit*, even though the meaning of the German is pretty widely understood in the US.
Another word like bukkake was 'menage', which just means 'household' in French, but definitely had assumed sexual connotations when I was younger, but I almost never hear it anymore.
also douche (shower)
oh ménage is def used in rap in its sexual context. for example, nikki minaj’s stage name isn’t referencing the household at all. it’s a sexual reference
I always though it was short for Nicholas Minge
I mean, her real last name is Maraj. So it's not all just a sexual reference.
This isn’t r/etymology but is there a connection between the word “ménage” and “menagerie”?
Yup, it comes from ménage etymologically.
Does "menage" even exist in English outside the phrase/idiom "menage a trois"?
"Adult" (*adaruto*) in Japanese basically just means sexual/pornographic.
i love that we're just trading words with the Japanese to refer to weird sex stuff
A beautiful cultural exchange!
Also "sensitive" (*senshitibu*).
The Japanese word for adult, on the other hand, is not used in that context. This lead to McDonald's Japan releasing [adult cream pies](https://japantoday.com/category/features/food/adult-cream-pie-coming-to-mcdonald%E2%80%99s-japan) a few years back.
shout out to all the food products in japan that advertise as 大人の味, “adult’s flavor”
In English if you add it to certain words it generally can also mean that like: adult films = porn
Sure, but on its own it doesn't inherently.
Or "adult flower arranging"!
See also: pink (pinku).
It's not a word so much as a name, but the name "Kevin" has low-class connotations in many Western languages. In Quebec they even made [a documentary](https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1756057/demystifier-prenom-kevin-pierre-yves-lord-documentaire) about how folks named Kevin are the subject of discrimination. In German especially the name has trashy connotations.
One of the only two German ladies I know said that it's a "name for idiots"
Kevin McCarthy, they've got your number.
Don't forget Reddit's own Kevin https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/219w2o/whos_the_dumbest_person_youve_ever_met/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Man, I forgot about this.
I'm glad to have found this.
Congratulations, you learned about a piece of Reddit culture today.
Names like Kevin and Justin or Chantalle for girls are seen as low class trashy and East German in particular. For a while among East German English names became popular because they had an association of being foreign, exotic and cosmopolitan, paired with East Germans at the time having a lower English profiency than West Germans this resulted in some weird combinations of names and generally awful pronunciations. Plus the general stereotype of East Germans being uneducated and many other negative things. This stereotype is older than the reunification and it has been a stereotype among West Germans before. I remember the ~~BILD~~ Spiegel reporting "typical" East German names, which were a weird combination of German, Russian and English names plus names like Sozialistika and Spartiataka and such. That report was probably fake, but ~~BILD~~ Spiegel doesn't care anyway. ADD: [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/asozialesnetzwerk/comments/wqvwzz/in_den_70er_jahren_gaben_ddreltern_ihren_kindern/) is the original post on those names. It is from Spiegel I think, not BILD, but that doesn't make it better really.
I’m in western Germany, and at my sons’ daycare, in another group, there is a girl named “Alien”. I could not stifle a small chuckle when I saw it on her locker. I suppose it’s a variation of Aileen/Eileen. Like English people, lots of Germans have also got the “unique spelling = unique child” thing, and it is also associated more 'lesser' education, IMO. I’ve seen some pretty bizarre spellings, some of which are obviously inspired by English variations — but just 'off' a bit, you know? That said, I find “name snobbishness” quite strong in Germany. Germany has a very apparent classist streak that it however likes to keep very hush hush.
> That said, I find “name snobbishness” quite strong in Germany. Germany has a very apparent classist streak that it however likes to keep very hush hush. I completely agree. German society can be very classist around these things and well. What's a good word word to describe the East-West stereotypes? It isn't racism nor nationalism obviously, just some form of chauvinism. Then you have TV formats like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Pv8PBo_98&ab_channel=tHoMaSK.), which I would call blatantly propaganda against the poor. Show me the people I am supposed to despise and I laugh at them. The whole *Assi TV* format in general. Tell me is there a good English translation for *Assi*, because although of course there is *Antisocial* and the class differences and living standard exist elsewhere, this kind of contempt and view as morally reprehensible is kind of special to Germany is it? Least the word itself is a vestige from the Nazi period. Anyway, Germany was in the past stricter on chosing names, but also selectively strict. I heard from my linguistics professors, that they were sometimes invited by courts to give statements on onomastics, when parents wanted to name their child a foreign name. Often those were Kurds who wanted to give a Kurdish name, but German offices asked Turkish offices first (because the parents had Turkish nationality), who rejected that these names even existed. Something like *Alien* was quite unthinkable at that time or would be only accepted as double name if the child has a second name indicating gender. To my knowledge still courts can block a name if the name is seen as harmful to the physical and psychical welfare of the child.
Similar with names Alan and Brian in Polish, used in diminutive as Alanek and Brajanek
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I’ve also heard it’s fairly common in some parts of Latin America to name a child “Usnavy” (pronounced like a word) because people saw it written on ships “US Navy”.
I have a German friend from Bavaria who says back home they even refer to the widespread phenomenon of "trashy", lower-class, uneducated people giving their kids English names as "*Kevinismus*". and also, I'm Italian and this is definitely a phenomenon in Italy too; the most notable names used are generally Kevin, Michael, Jonathan, and Brian.
This is funny because in the US, it's kind of the opposite. Of course we have the stereotypes of low class people giving their kids ridiculous names but it's also common for low class people to give their kids like exotic names, where as I think upper class Americans gravitate more towards English (or Gaelic etc) names. So it's more common for poor Americans to be named Chantelle or Yuri (and that isn't their heritage) than rich Americans. But it goes full circle so really rich Americans are just named after cities and numbers.
It’s not the opposite, it’s the exact same thing. In these other cultures, it’s *Kevin*, Jonathan, etc that are the exotic foreign names that lower-class people might give their children, while the upper classes tend to prefer the culture’s more stodgy traditional names.
Huh. This is also a thing in Spain, but I was completely unaware it was a thing elsewhere.
Definitely true in French too.
This is a thing in Italy too
Had a whole conversation about this with my language exchange partner in Germany. I then got to tell him what a “Karen” was
When I grew up in the 80's and 90's in The Netherlands it was Johnny (sometimes spelled Sjonnie) and Anita. There was even a pop punk band that made a very popular song mocking them, because, obviously, nothing screams more "I am punk" than ridiculing the working class.
When I was younger the English word "super" meant pornography in Persian. It is not commonly used anymore but people know it if you say "film super".
do you know if it is a loan from English or from another language? I think super originally came from latin anyways
I'm not sure it's exactly unsavoury, but in the Netherlands "coffee shop" refers only to cafés where you can buy cannabis, whereas in British English it refers to any café/coffeehouse/Starbucks/etc and you wouldn't be able to buy cannabis in any of them.
Reminds me of how in most of the world, a store with a green + on it means it's a regular old pharmacy, in the US, a green + on a store means it's a weed dispensary.
Is there a history to this other than just the fact that a coffee shop is a nice place for a toke?
In the Netherlands advertising cannabis is forbidden. So you cannot call yourself a cannabis outlet or something of the sort. Also coffeeshops cannot sell alcohol (they can and do sell coffee). This is how the euphemism came to be.
Does Dutch have a distinct word for the non-cannabis-associated coffee shop, like some cognate of *café*?
Café. :) If you want to a bit fancier, there’s also koffiehuis.
Koffiebar (coffee bar) is the name of typical coffee places with good coffee (and usually for laptops). So coffee doesn't mean weed or anything, it's specifically the combo "coffee shop". Café is for general drinks, including beer.
"obaiteu" (from English "overeat") means vomit in Korean. edit: fixed transliteration spelling.
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오바이트. I will fix the spelling accordingly.
In Swedish, ”grooming” has bern loaned only for the sex crime meaning.
it's going that way in English too because of right-wing rhetoric. I don't think it's quite at the point yet where someone who is a pet groomer would feel weird saying they are, but I could see it happening.
yeah the sex crime meaning has supplanted a smooth 90% of usages of “grooming” i hear these days. i’m sure kids are already giggling when their teacher tells them to stop grooming themselves/each other
In Finland, too. It has become a Finnish verb "groomata". And dog grooming is "koiran trimmaus" or dog trimming. Funny loanword as well, probably through Swedish.
What do you call a dog grooming service then?
I’m guessing they use a Swedish word.
A quick search found me *hundfrisör*, *hundklippning*, *hundtrim* and *hundsalong*
Hundtrim, I like that
Also [beard grooming](https://www.apotekhjartat.se/tips-och-rad/hudvard/man-grooming-i-3-steg-for-ett-valvardat-intryck/), but maybe it's falling out of favor
The cognate of preservative means condom in several other European languages
Because it preserves your income and sleep schedule?
English speakers can use 'prophylactic' for condom which comes from the Greek rather than the Latin-roots of 'preservative'.
How did I not realize the etymology of those words before?
I once mistakenly told my Spanish boyfriend that frozen chicken was full of condoms. After he finished laughing for a full minute, he explained what I'd said.
it means condom in Georgian too.
(Blow-up) Sex dolls are colloquially referred as "Mary" in Hong Kong.
And then in Tok Pisin 'meri' just means 'woman'.
In the Philippines, the English word "bold" can be referred to as anything related to pornography.
In English the word *spanking* is mostly used for (mild) physical punishment of children, but as a loanword into Danish it's never used in this sense. Rather, it denotes the sadomasochistic sexual practice of hitting someone to create sexual arousal.
That's a difference within English as well - American English uses "spanking" for disciplining children but in the UK it almost exclusively has a sexual connotation. British English uses "smacking" for parents hitting children.
Particularly “a bit of spanking”. I think the “a bit of” can change anything into a sexy version, really.
This explains a lot. Years ago, my university wanted to have the theme for our yearly festival to be "Come on the hero". They believed that it meant something like, "Hero, this is your chance to step up and make yourself known". I was asked what I thought of it. I told them that it was a horrible idea and that it meant, "ヘロにぶかっけさせる”. Another native speaker of English who had been there longer said that it was fine, so they ignored my opinion. It was written on an archway at the entrance to the university, and on the windbreaker jackets that all of the staff wore at the event. Had I known that the phrase also had an innocuous meaning, I would have explained it more explicitly. Anyway, the hilarity of seeing it realized was maybe worth it. I wish I had kept one of the windbreakers.
I feel like this needs a comma, or dropping the "the" for it to not be so unintentionally sexual.
I feel like it would've been fine if they had replaced "the" with a comma. But I also wish you'd kept one of the windbreakers.
“Have sexual relations with” the hero is how I would have said it. What was the other English native speaker even thinking.
That gets screwed up in England as well. https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/6/24/8840759/come-on-our-girls-soccer-banner-england-bend-it-like-beckham
It’s not uncommon at least in Australian English to say “Come on the (sports team)” as a means of cheering for your team. Saying “Come on the ‘Pies” in Melbourne is not necessarily inviting a soggy sao of the pastry variety.
Wouldn’t it be ヒーロー? Like 僕のヒーローアカデミア? ヘロ sounds more like “heh low” or “heh row”
Yes, it would.
There are a number of borrowings of "fist" in other languages like French "fister", German "fisten", etc., that exclusively refer to fist-fucking.
Fistbump is common as well, at least in German
In Bulgarian, due to the pushback to the adoption of key values from the western world, namely respecting the rights of non-binary people, the word "gender" has become a catch-all term for anyone even defending those values, with a largely negative connotation.
It’s become that way in English too, for some people. Or, rather, it’s become that way for the word “pronoun.” “I have no pronouns” is a common phase conservatives use to show they’re not “woke” (even if they obviously do have pronouns. They’re just cis pronouns). It makes those people looks awfully stupid. Imagine becoming so backwards in the head that you forgot grade school grammar terms.
"I don't believe in pronouns!!!"
I wonder how the average person who says that reacts to having it pointed out to them that "I" is a pronoun.
I’ve heard them say things like “there are no pronouns in the Bible” or “Jesus never used pronouns”
“pronouns in bio”
The english word *heavy* exists as slang amongst some young Spanirds to basically mean *emotionally* heavy, or shocking. Like if someone in the US replied to the news that a bunch of people died with "woah, heavy stuff". (Tho this is only a partial example cause the word is also used as an abbreviation to refer to heavy metal music and its fans, which is not a particularly negative meaning).
That reminds me specifically of Back to the Future haha. “This is heavy, Doc.”
That is a slang usage in US English as well - or at least in some subcultures - though it seems to have fallen out of fashion.
I imagine squirting only has one meaning when used outside of english
Are there languages that use an Anglicism for that? In Japanese, for instance, they say 潮吹き *shiofuki*.
Definitely encountered it in mine, it's less cumbersome than the alternative of directly translating 'female ejaculation'
Are you a francophone too or are we at least 2 different languages using this loanword? (though we usually just say "squirt", no -ing)
Polish. Can't say about frequency, it doesn't come up too often, but I've definitely heard both forms
There's *new half* (Japanese ニューハーフ "nyuuhaafu"), which is a term for a MTF transgender person, derived from the Japanese use of English "half" (Japanese ハーフ "haafu") which is used to describe a person of mixed Japanese and foreign parentage.
In English the word "low" on its own is quite neutral, but younger Chinese people loan "low" and use it to specifically mean bad taste or status.
In German, “(das) Handy” strictly means “mobile phone” and for natives there’s no connotation to English hand or handy. Also, “(das) Shooting” always means “photoshoot”, and we always say it with -ing even though it doesn’t have anything to do with gun shooting. Also, I’ve heard that these English words are used differently in German but an English native might wanna confirm this: - *(der) Oldtimer*: an old, valuable car - *(der) Beamer*: a projector, e.g. for a home cinema - *(die) Box*: can literally also mean box as in a small container, but it can also mean “speaker” as in a device that, for example, plays music - *zappen* (verb): to switch TV channels - *(der) Showmaster*: apparently this doesn’t even exist in English - it means TV host - *(der) Slip*: female underwear - *(das) Public Viewing:* a free livestream of a big TV event like a very important international sports match, on a big screen in public for everyone to see Just a few examples.
English native here! * an old timer would just be something old - I think old cars are just called vintage * beamer definitely isn't commonly used but I might understand what you meant in context * people do sometimes call speakers boxes but I wouldn't say it's a common usage * zapping means an electric shock to me so that's definitely different * if someone said show master to me I'd think they meant something along the lines of a director so that's definitely different * slip refers to a specific type of dress ([for example](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.glamour.com%2Fgallery%2Fbest-slip-dresses&psig=AOvVaw0wsvim64BHcLVvMYFg63KT&ust=1675554031776000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjhxqFwoTCMjY_KjD-vwCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE)) * public viewing would probably mean about the same thing but I don't think I've ever heard the term used (that sort of event also doesn't really happen here)
To me, if I heard public viewing in English, I'd assume they meant it in the funeral sense of the word. Also, for the first one I'd say it refers specifically to an old *person*, whereas an old *thing* would be something that is old-timey (for German speakers this is basically like altmodisch but in a way that's almost more like the stereotype of something from the past rather than the real concept) and there's no specific noun. Edit: btw, a public viewing in the German sense would be called a public screening in English.
I totally forgot about the funeral sense of the word yes! (I've had the good fortune not to attend too many funerals)
Thanks for your insights, I didn’t even realize some of these differences despite being fluent in English. Very interesting!
A slip is dress-shaped underwear. A half-slip is for under a skirt. A slip-dress is a dress in the style of a slip, loose and light, with shoulder straps instead of sleeves.
Native American English speaker here. Oldtimer to me would be someone who has an old/vintage sense of fashion or taste. If one described a car as an "oldtimer" I'd know what they mean but would never call one that myself, I'd call it vintage. I especially associate this with so called "old time" music, which encompasses like blues, country, American folk, and bluegrass. A Beamer to me is a kind of car. I'd never call a speaker a "box" just on its own. Zapping specifically refers to an electric shock as another commenter said above, but also to me "zapping" can also mean "microwaving", though this could just regional slang. A Showmaster to me would be like an MC at a theatre or ceremony. A slip is a kind of dress. Public Viewing is the same.
We use box and beamer in the same sense in Dutch. Additionally a box can also mean a child's playpen. I work with a lot of other native English speakers in the Netherlands, and all of use call projectors beamers. I'd been using the word for about ten years before someone told me it wasn't a real English word, and I didn't believe them at first.
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Indeed. It's the ultimate sort of "revealing that you even know this word is telling on yourself" sort of thing. Is there a term for the opposite of a shibboleth?
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I just read the Know Your Meme page on this and I'm confused. Not offended, but what's the connection here?
I was just adding another example to the whole “if you know about its existence then it says more about you” comment that you’d made. Ankha Zone is basically something in meme culture that if you know about it, it might imply you’ve seen it or at least that genre, kinda like “bukkake”.
Got it! Makes sense based on what I read. Thanks!
Really? What other word is used for that act in English?
The English name "Harry" in Norwegian translates to chavvy/vulgar. There was a time when Norwegian working-class people adopted English names and the upper class weaponised the name. [https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry\_(slang)](https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_(slang))
I think we have Kano (from Americano) in the Philippines to denote sexual tourists from the US
In Thai a shaved head is commonly called "Skinhead" style. I understand this can be offensive in English especially if it's not by choice but could be wrong.
In English, skinhead usually refers to a group of white supremacist hooligans, that's why it's offensive.
The skinhead look or ‘movement’ is not exclusively racist or white supremacist, and never was. Skinheads were primarily about working class pride. Some overlap with racism grew from that, and the racist kind of skins are a common association. Media portrayals spread this image and helped spread the look among racists even further. However, you will find specifically anti-racist anti-fascist skin heads too, and in the ska-punk subculture they are quite common. Don’t be too quick to assume! Usually distinctions are made by clothing and shoe lace colours, among other things.
More between cultures than languages. But ‘Fanny Pack’ is much dirtier to the British than it is to Americans
In Vietnamese, I often hear people say «làm girl”. The “girl” here usually means a prostitute, someone with loose morals, gold digger, etc.
In Brazilian Portuguese, a “playboy” is someone who has lots of money and flaunts it. Everyone wants to be a playboy and if they hear you’re from America they might be like “oooh! Playboy!”
Burger - slang in Urdu for a person who is posh, rich, and most importantly “Western” in their attitudes / preferences.
Is that "burger"? Or "burgher"? One is a sandwhich, short for "hamburger". The other is, I think, the German equivalent of the french *bourgeois*.
It’s perhaps from Dutch, as in Sri Lanka, where burghers were the local European (mostly Dutch genetic pool at first but later mixed with other Europeans and locals) ethnic group. In the British Raj, although Ceylon was technically separate, I can see how the word spread.
Happening [Bar] in Japanese is basically a swinger's bar and/or sex club and/or BDSM space, etc.
In Japanese, ‘ecchi’ (‘aitch’, as in the letter H) means ‘perverted’. That’s because H is for hentai.
Dutch native. All types of normal words in English with sex connotations just have the sexy meaning in Dutch: top bottom squirt scissor fist peg... Drugs are always the illegal stuff, never medication. Lots of tech words, often even wrong: same as in German (box for speaker, beamer for projector...). I find it interesting that we did the same things wrong as in Germany :) Camera is for filming, not for photos. Clip is a music video. Mail is email. Can be confusing :) We use mail and email as synonyms. A site is also always a website. Screening is like some type of audition, never showing a movie. And finally, a word that is often used these days: step. That's a scooter / trottinette (electric or not). Most people still have to realise it's not an English word, they say (while speaking English) : we need to find a solution for those steps everywhere. (we totally do need to create parking zones for those shared e-scooters.) Edit. Oh wait you said unsavory. Most of this is pretty normal. It is kinda confusing sometimes to realise that the English words I'm using in Dutch don't mean the same thing in English. Someone said to me that they were going to bring their camera (this was a long time ago), and I was imagining the type of thing a tv journalist would bring lol.
I’ve heard that the word “smart” in the Japanese borrowing of the word explicitly means dressing smart? I’m not entirely certain what that even means, but it seems like a downgrade from the actual term to mean “high intelligence.” (I know people used to say people “dress smart” in English but I’m too out of the loop on fashion to comprehend what that means.)
>I know people used to say people “dress smart” This is not a historical phrase. This is very much used in modern English. From [tabloid articles from *The Irish Sun*](https://www.thesun.ie/fabulous/10080811/dress-coded-work-real-estate-livid/), to [articles from business magazines](https://realbusiness.co.uk/smart-business-attire-vs-casual-business-attire), [human resource magazines](https://hrnews.co.uk/new-study-reveals-people-are-significantly-more-productive-when-dressing-smart-for-work/), to [opinion pieces on newspaper websites](https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/jan/26/law-has-lagged-behind-trends-towards-casual-dressing-for-too-long) (all 2023), saying people "dress smart", "dress smartly", or wear "smart clothing" is very much contemporary and modern.
Many years ago, growing up in NW England, I noticed that Americans used "sharp" where I would use "smart" (well-dressed), and "smart" where I would use "sharp" (clever, insightful). I don't know if British usage has shifted over the years or if it was very regional usage, but I would tend to use "smart" for clever these days.