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On Fri, 4 Oct 2002 09:26:19 +0100 "Peter J. Davies" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > I absolutely agree with the views expressed on the subject of anglicisms: the > Germans, Austrians and Swiss should pay more attention to the views of us > expert non-native-speakers. etc., etc. There is, of course, no need for them to pay attention to anybody, nor will they. And I suspect that the phenomenon of the "fake" borrowing is not limited to the German language. How many people, after all, thought that "Deutschmark" was a German word? I would have thought that the interest in such aberrant coinages and usage (Handy, Showmaster, etc.) lies not in the satisfaction of knowing ones mother-tongue better than non-native-speakers, but in what they say about other borrowings that happen to concur with Anglo-Saxon usage. Are they really accidents caused by an imperfect knowledge of English or merely the cases which demonstrate clearly the _general_ unimportance of authenticity as opposed to the 'feel' of English? I think Dr Frank is right, Werbefritzen are not stupid, but that is why their choices can be so illuminating of the culture they function in. He may also be right in suggesting that correct English would sometimes get in the way of the message. But this cannot always be the case. Consider the "Beamer". The first fifty hits of a web search with Google for this word in German-language pages produces only references to a "Beamer" as a video projector, whereas a search in English-language pages produces not a single example in this sense, except in pages in English on mainland European (mostly German/Austrian/Swiss, Dutch and Scandinavian) sites. One would not have thought that the world of "Beamers" is one in which being cool is an important factor and buyers would be turned off by or unable to cope with real English. Nonetheless, even though "Video" and "Projektor" are available and not stuffily 'teutsch' an fake-English neologism is preferred. Linguistic ignorance? A fear that correct English might hinder comprehension? Or evidence that there are areas of linguistic usage where the word as object is initally more important than its accurate use. This is why "Service to have friends" or "For a better understanding" need not be the product of a ropey translator. Perhaps advertising slogans have culturally specific formal requirements which have to be present and retained even if the actual words come from another culture. It is a nice irony that despite their superficial foreigness they are then still dependent for their comprehensibility, such as it is, on the cultural context and syntax of the rejected home language. Alan Deighton Department of German Hull