Frightening Borrow-Words

[debka_notion]

I just came across the Hebrew words for Anthropocentric and theocentric in my Hebrew homework. They look Awfully scary, even if they sound almost exactly like the English.

Comments

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

Borrow-words are wonderful fun, aren't they?

My Japanese teacher includes ~five of them on every week's quiz, to make sure we're spelling them right... I think the scariest (and longest) ones I've ever seen are the placenames. How do you spell Yerushalayim in Japanese?

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that Japanese has no native L sound. That would make things complicated.

[sharonaf.livejournal.com]

I did once receive a New Year's card from Japan when I was in Israel. I believe my correspondent used the transliteration I-er-u-sa-re-mu. Not all that bad, considering.
*still remembers the fun Japanese teacher had referring to classmate named Lukashevsky*

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Ahh, the joy of Slavic lastnames... In a similar theme, I liked how someone once turned my last name into Kosokosow. Certainly sounds a bit Japanese that way- maybe just the arrangement of syllables, not that I know anything about Japanese....

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

Poor Jonathan-san and Anthony... (Japanese also has no "th", which becomes an "s", thus resulting in jonasansan and the like...) 'Course, I'm torabisu, so... gee, Sharona, you're lucky, ne?

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

אנתרופוסנטרי and תאוסנטרי, right?

My favorite result of English loan-words is that the word for "bartender" (ברמן, as in the British term "barman") feminizes to ברמנית.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Close but no cigar- with a tzadi in the place of the samekh.

My favorite is the Hebrew for rear axle (Although I'm not sure if I have my spelling perfect, nor my genders- but the idea is just impossible to forget): הפרונט אקסל האחורה

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

I can't quite read that (of course), but I'm guessing it says something like "ha-front axle" followed by something that means "back" or "opposite"?

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Yup- it's the back front axle.

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Wow.

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

Close but no cigar

I never understood the logic/history behind this expression. What does a poisonous, foul-smelling herb have to do with how close somebody's guess is?