Questions tagged [loanwords]
Questions about words borrowed by English from another language.
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Is "sort of like" hypercorrectur? [closed]
Dutch has soortgelijke "alike, similar", soortelijk "specific to", and indeed soort van "sort of", German has to my knowledge only technical jargon sortenrein "...
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Meaning of the borrowing "programé" (found as a noun in English, but an adjective in French)
As most often is the case, when a word with a French form, but used as English vocabulary, is the object of a Google search in the English corpus, the result is a series of hits strictly out of the ...
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Why “nouveau riche” but “art nouveau?”
In English, why are the adjectives in different places in nouveau riche and art nouveau? Is that an artifact of the original French, a corruption in adoption, or something else?
(Apologies if this is ...
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Why is Siobhan pronounced with a /v/ sound in English?
In English the name Siobhan is typically pronounced /ʃəvɔːn/. English speakers typically find this unintuitive, but the typical explanation is that the name is from Irish and that's how it's ...
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Where's the first attestation of the distinction between "hardcore" hentai and "softcore" ecchi?
The Wikipedia articles on both "Hentai" and "Ecchi" (the "Western usage" in particular) do not provide much clarity on this. Etchi in Japanese as far as I can tell is ...
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Is there a word for something that was formerly a social norm but is no longer acceptable?
I've been reading a lot of various classic literature, and at times there is the sort of casual misogyny or racism that was commonplace and (within certain cultures) the social norm at that time. Such ...
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Is there a word for fans making excuses for their favorite artist? [duplicate]
The example I'm thinking of is Bethesda and Starfield. Other than the graphics it's not a well designed game, but people keep making excuses for it, when smaller teams have done far more with far less ...
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Are there examples of mutual loanwords in French and in English?
I was once asked the question:
What French word is commonly used in English for which an English word is commonly used in French?
The answer was respectively rendezvous and date, which I found very ...
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If a loan word is used with a different meaning in a given language, is it still a loan word?
Spanish speakers use 'basket,' for basketball, 'smoking' for black tie and 'freaki' for geek. They also use 'camping' for camp site and 'parking' for car park, but the participles retain the same ...
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Are the origins of ¡ay, güey! and 'oy vey' related at all? [closed]
Though both of these terms come from other languages, they are both said in English, depending on where one is. One (ay wey as a more English form) can mean holy crap!, and the other can mean ...
user486478
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What is the origin of the word "doh" (as seen in the world's first crossword puzzle)?
The first ever crossword puzzle was written by Arthur Wynne in 1913:
Image from Wikimedia Commons
It has several clues with obscure and obsolete answers, but I was able to find all of them in ...
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Term for cleaning up a language
Italian government wants to forbid the usage of foreign terms, which in Italy are mostly English:
Italians who use English and other foreign words in official communications could face fines of up to ...
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How did barista enter the English language?
The Italian term barista (bartender) entered the English language in 1992 and its usage has considerably increased since then according to Google Books:
"bartender in a coffee shop," as a ...
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Can you use 'amok' without 'run'? How?
I've only ever seen the word 'amok' used in conjunction with the verb 'to run'. As in, 'running amok' or 'to run amok'. Is there an accepted way to use 'amok' without the verb 'to run'? Do you have ...
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Why are long e and o most prone to be diphthongised by English speakers?
As a teacher of languages, it has struck me how English vowels love not just diphthongs, but even triphthongs, and this tendency presents itself in how native English speakers generally tend to ...
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