Ok, this post is actually not about misuse of English here in Japan (a post on that subject you can find here), but on the invention of new words in English in Japan that end up only existing here in Japan.When Mrs. Sunshine was brought back to the old country and a question came up from some of my Swedish relatives whether she was planning to buy something in particular at one tourist destination we were planning to go to. In her regular basically flawless English she answered "Well, I don't want to buy anything big, but maybe an "eco-bag" or something small like that". This was met with considerable confusion until I realized that "eco-bag" is not a generally accepted word in the English vocabulary and could explain that she meant reusable shopping bags.
The term "eco-bag" is (as far as I know) invented in Japan and means a reusable bag used for grocery shopping and the "ecology" part comes from that no disposable plastic bags is needed and thus is more environmentally friendly. From an English language perspective, I think the word is perfectly reasonable, but deceptive... I'm sure there are plenty of more examples out there, but none come to mind at the moment.
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Here we have a variety of reusable eco bags, most famously the green ones that Woolies sells.
I miss hearing only American all the time. I think there should be more American spoken in Japan.
Yeah, "eco" isn't English, although it is less bulky than "ecologically friendly."
I have a small tome titled "アメリカ人のしたない英語", which explained an awful lot to me as I (as a Genuine Native English Speaker) had previously assumed all these odd-sounding words ("gasoline stand" comes to mind) were actually North Americanisms.
Typo correction: the above book title should be "アメリカ人の知らない英語"
Aimless - Yeah, but what do you call them down under?
Sixmats - Yep, that's a great language
Blue Shoe - But it's acceptable to say "eco friendly" in English (sorry, American), isn't it?
Penguin - That actually sounds like a quite interesting book, must be plenty out there
The term for this class of words is "pseudo-anglicisms" which are a kind of "false friends". It's like when the germans say "handy" for a mobile phone. Or when we Swedes say "freestyle" for a walkman"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend
I'd say that the most common names are "green bags", "green reusable bags" or "eco bags".
Air-con (エアコン) is a good example
"one-piece" for a dress
Paso-con for PC. My husband actually did thik it was English.
And of course remo-con.
And pet bottles!
I’m sorry to ruin your fun, but eco-bag is a term I’ve heard here (England), in English...meaning exactly that, a reusable plastic bag.
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