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This largely unreferenced article turned into an example farm magnet. Therefore I trimmed it severely. There are whole dictionaries of false friends. Please do not add more examples, unless they illustrate some new phenomenon with false friends. Please do not add nonnotable examples. Nearly every word of greek or latin root generated false friends. Staszek Lem ( talk) 17:24, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Clarify: did Dutch neger fade from use because of the English taboo, or take on the offensive connotations of nigger but remain in use, or what? — Tamfang ( talk) 23:32, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
The meaning of "American Italian" is not as obvious as one might prefer. I guess it means "Italian as spoken in North America"; if so, it would be better to say that. (I assume that Italian as spoken in Latin America, which could as reasonably be called "American Italian" by analogy with "American Spanish", has not been influenced in the same way!) — Tamfang ( talk) 01:32, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
This whole paragraph is oddly phrased. What region is being referred to? "usually cereals in general"? That last line also goes on far too long. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.5.189.96 ( talk) 11:50, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
On 9 May 2015, there was an unexplained edit to the effect that "to root" is used also in British English to mean "to support".
My reversion (26 June 2015) of that change has twice been reversed by user Rsrikanth05, first with no explanation, then with an explanation "Removed British English on the basis of an assumption that an IP claims so. Please discuss".
It is difficult to see how we can approach an agreement where changes are made with no explanation (as on 9 May and in Rsrikanth05's first reversion) or where the explanation is confused (as in Rsrikanth05's second reversion, in this case to the extent that it describes the opposite of the change which he/she has made and where the rest of the description appears to make no sense). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Shepherd ( talk • contribs) 05:38, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. ( non-admin closure) Calidum T| C 23:19, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
False friend → False friends – Obligatorily plural (as a encyclopedic topic; I don't mean that one cannot say "embarazada is a false friend"). There's no such thing as a single false friend, conceptually; there must be two or more, by definition, even if only one is mentioned in a particular clause. This article is about a relationship between words (plural). See here for how routine this kind of move is. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 08:13, 22 July 2015 (UTC) Clarified. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 03:01, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Just curious, btw most other languages that I can decipher appear to use the verbatim translation for this. 90.186.79.215 ( talk) 12:17, 2 August 2016 (UTC) Ok.. Italian wikipedia has the explanation "In francese, l'espressione faux amis è stata creata da M. Koessler e J. Derocquigny" and google spits out [1]. 90.186.79.215 ( talk) 13:15, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure this is really correct to say it is largely obsolete in English. Although there's a link to magazine (firearms), when I worked for a large defence company all of well anything that could blow you up basically was stored in a magazine, i.e. there were buildings known rather prosaically as the Eastern Magazine and the Western Magazine. They weren't the little portable magazines for carrying bullets etc in but rather large buildings with various dugouts etc in case anything exploded (fortunately it never did). That wider sense of a storehouse for ammunition, gunpowder, plastic explosives, ballistic missiles and whatnot really is more closer to the idea of a magazine as a store, and I'm surprised to read it is mostly obsolete in English. What do others think? Si Trew ( talk) 08:08, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I removed numerous examples which do not meet the definition of false friends. All the differences in meaning of English words on either side of the Atlantic or in Australia may be surprising, puzzling, entertaining, or even embarrassing, but they are not false friends. Ditto words in Spanish like coger or pisar. These are words that have regional differences in meaning in a single language, and the number of such examples is limitless; not only from one country to another speaking a common language, but in different regions of the same country. They are not false friends, they are simply regional differences in primary (or secondary) meaning of a word.
Also, the definition of false friend is fairly particular about the words of the pair being etymologically related, and any article about false friends should elucidate how false friends and false cognates are not the same thing. Mathglot ( talk) 04:13, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
The article is shot through with original research and unsourced assertions. This is understandable, because everybody feels like an expert in their native language (and sometimes, others as well). However, Wikipedia's core principle of verifiability is clear on this point: All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable, and that Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. It should be noted that adding an inline citation consisting of a dictionary definition of one or both words in a false-friends pair, verifies each of their meanings, but does not verify their status as false friends unless the source says so. To assume they are false friends from the reading of two dictionary entries where the source does not explicitly make that assertion, is WP:SYNTH and not permitted.
I plan to start removing content that is unsourced. This may mean large chunks of text, including perhaps entire, large tables of word pairs in other languages, and other unsourced or invalidly sourced material. Examples of false friend pairs should be sourced to a reference which mentions the term false friends, or something similar, or they are subject to removal. Please be sure when adding text to the article, that you include valid, reliable sources from secondary sources that substantiate the claims. Mathglot ( talk) 11:30, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Who said "demandar" only means "to sue"? I think it also means "to demand" in the sense of "to request", or have you never heard of the expression "video/vídeo bajo demanda" ("video on demand", commonly abbreviated as "VoD")? -- Fandelasketchup ( talk) 14:52, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Is it just another synonym for homonymy? Or there's something else??
2409:4060:2083:1D68:0:0:20E1:B8AC ( talk) 18:20, 27 July 2018 (UTC) 2409:4060:2083:1D68:0:0:20E1:B8AC ( talk)
A person learning another language can come across a compound word, and translate the parts individually into their own language. However, this apparent meaning could be very different from the true meaning. For example, in Dutch bumperklever translates part-for-part as "bumper sticker", but actually means "tailgater". Is there a term for this kind of false friend, and is it covered in sources at all? Rua ( mew) 17:41, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
As a native German speaker I‘d like to mention that the example „See“ is not 100 percent correct. „See“ indeed means lake but only in the male form „der See“. If the female version is used („die See“) its meaning changes to „sea“. Therefore its not always a false friend. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:F0:870A:3E00:FC71:D19D:C436:16E3 ( talk) 11:45, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus. EdJohnston ( talk) 04:33, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
False friend → False friends – As per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals), articles about groups or classes of specific things are to be titled in plural form. That's the case in the present article, in which "false friends" appears ten times while the singular form only appears twice. Even the first sentence is contorted to fit in the singular form: "a false friend is either of two words" would be simply "false friends are two words". In a previous request , the most substantial objection argued the "friendship" involves the translator and either word, not between the two words. But even so, there is always a pair of words involved in the concept of false friends. fgnievinski ( talk) 01:37, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Needs a notion on "joke meaning" in one language versus serious meaning in another. Or could use one.
And here goes my runglishy example:
In my opinion, "almond activated" may be mistakengly translated as "amygdala activated" by a En-Ru translator unaware of the meme nature of the phrase. 81.89.66.133 ( talk) 11:25, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
I am a bit disturbed that the See Also list now includes Dunglish, Spanglish, Swenglish. Will it grow to include all such hybrids? —Tamfang ( talk) 21:13, 26 July 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
False friend article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
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|
This largely unreferenced article turned into an example farm magnet. Therefore I trimmed it severely. There are whole dictionaries of false friends. Please do not add more examples, unless they illustrate some new phenomenon with false friends. Please do not add nonnotable examples. Nearly every word of greek or latin root generated false friends. Staszek Lem ( talk) 17:24, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
Clarify: did Dutch neger fade from use because of the English taboo, or take on the offensive connotations of nigger but remain in use, or what? — Tamfang ( talk) 23:32, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
The meaning of "American Italian" is not as obvious as one might prefer. I guess it means "Italian as spoken in North America"; if so, it would be better to say that. (I assume that Italian as spoken in Latin America, which could as reasonably be called "American Italian" by analogy with "American Spanish", has not been influenced in the same way!) — Tamfang ( talk) 01:32, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
This whole paragraph is oddly phrased. What region is being referred to? "usually cereals in general"? That last line also goes on far too long. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.5.189.96 ( talk) 11:50, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
On 9 May 2015, there was an unexplained edit to the effect that "to root" is used also in British English to mean "to support".
My reversion (26 June 2015) of that change has twice been reversed by user Rsrikanth05, first with no explanation, then with an explanation "Removed British English on the basis of an assumption that an IP claims so. Please discuss".
It is difficult to see how we can approach an agreement where changes are made with no explanation (as on 9 May and in Rsrikanth05's first reversion) or where the explanation is confused (as in Rsrikanth05's second reversion, in this case to the extent that it describes the opposite of the change which he/she has made and where the rest of the description appears to make no sense). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Shepherd ( talk • contribs) 05:38, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. ( non-admin closure) Calidum T| C 23:19, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
False friend → False friends – Obligatorily plural (as a encyclopedic topic; I don't mean that one cannot say "embarazada is a false friend"). There's no such thing as a single false friend, conceptually; there must be two or more, by definition, even if only one is mentioned in a particular clause. This article is about a relationship between words (plural). See here for how routine this kind of move is. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 08:13, 22 July 2015 (UTC) Clarified. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 03:01, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Just curious, btw most other languages that I can decipher appear to use the verbatim translation for this. 90.186.79.215 ( talk) 12:17, 2 August 2016 (UTC) Ok.. Italian wikipedia has the explanation "In francese, l'espressione faux amis è stata creata da M. Koessler e J. Derocquigny" and google spits out [1]. 90.186.79.215 ( talk) 13:15, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure this is really correct to say it is largely obsolete in English. Although there's a link to magazine (firearms), when I worked for a large defence company all of well anything that could blow you up basically was stored in a magazine, i.e. there were buildings known rather prosaically as the Eastern Magazine and the Western Magazine. They weren't the little portable magazines for carrying bullets etc in but rather large buildings with various dugouts etc in case anything exploded (fortunately it never did). That wider sense of a storehouse for ammunition, gunpowder, plastic explosives, ballistic missiles and whatnot really is more closer to the idea of a magazine as a store, and I'm surprised to read it is mostly obsolete in English. What do others think? Si Trew ( talk) 08:08, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
I removed numerous examples which do not meet the definition of false friends. All the differences in meaning of English words on either side of the Atlantic or in Australia may be surprising, puzzling, entertaining, or even embarrassing, but they are not false friends. Ditto words in Spanish like coger or pisar. These are words that have regional differences in meaning in a single language, and the number of such examples is limitless; not only from one country to another speaking a common language, but in different regions of the same country. They are not false friends, they are simply regional differences in primary (or secondary) meaning of a word.
Also, the definition of false friend is fairly particular about the words of the pair being etymologically related, and any article about false friends should elucidate how false friends and false cognates are not the same thing. Mathglot ( talk) 04:13, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
The article is shot through with original research and unsourced assertions. This is understandable, because everybody feels like an expert in their native language (and sometimes, others as well). However, Wikipedia's core principle of verifiability is clear on this point: All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable, and that Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. It should be noted that adding an inline citation consisting of a dictionary definition of one or both words in a false-friends pair, verifies each of their meanings, but does not verify their status as false friends unless the source says so. To assume they are false friends from the reading of two dictionary entries where the source does not explicitly make that assertion, is WP:SYNTH and not permitted.
I plan to start removing content that is unsourced. This may mean large chunks of text, including perhaps entire, large tables of word pairs in other languages, and other unsourced or invalidly sourced material. Examples of false friend pairs should be sourced to a reference which mentions the term false friends, or something similar, or they are subject to removal. Please be sure when adding text to the article, that you include valid, reliable sources from secondary sources that substantiate the claims. Mathglot ( talk) 11:30, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
Who said "demandar" only means "to sue"? I think it also means "to demand" in the sense of "to request", or have you never heard of the expression "video/vídeo bajo demanda" ("video on demand", commonly abbreviated as "VoD")? -- Fandelasketchup ( talk) 14:52, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Is it just another synonym for homonymy? Or there's something else??
2409:4060:2083:1D68:0:0:20E1:B8AC ( talk) 18:20, 27 July 2018 (UTC) 2409:4060:2083:1D68:0:0:20E1:B8AC ( talk)
A person learning another language can come across a compound word, and translate the parts individually into their own language. However, this apparent meaning could be very different from the true meaning. For example, in Dutch bumperklever translates part-for-part as "bumper sticker", but actually means "tailgater". Is there a term for this kind of false friend, and is it covered in sources at all? Rua ( mew) 17:41, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
As a native German speaker I‘d like to mention that the example „See“ is not 100 percent correct. „See“ indeed means lake but only in the male form „der See“. If the female version is used („die See“) its meaning changes to „sea“. Therefore its not always a false friend. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2003:F0:870A:3E00:FC71:D19D:C436:16E3 ( talk) 11:45, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: No consensus. EdJohnston ( talk) 04:33, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
False friend → False friends – As per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals), articles about groups or classes of specific things are to be titled in plural form. That's the case in the present article, in which "false friends" appears ten times while the singular form only appears twice. Even the first sentence is contorted to fit in the singular form: "a false friend is either of two words" would be simply "false friends are two words". In a previous request , the most substantial objection argued the "friendship" involves the translator and either word, not between the two words. But even so, there is always a pair of words involved in the concept of false friends. fgnievinski ( talk) 01:37, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Needs a notion on "joke meaning" in one language versus serious meaning in another. Or could use one.
And here goes my runglishy example:
In my opinion, "almond activated" may be mistakengly translated as "amygdala activated" by a En-Ru translator unaware of the meme nature of the phrase. 81.89.66.133 ( talk) 11:25, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
I am a bit disturbed that the See Also list now includes Dunglish, Spanglish, Swenglish. Will it grow to include all such hybrids? —Tamfang ( talk) 21:13, 26 July 2024 (UTC)