Archive for March 16, 1998

kk: Englishizing

As described in an earlier column, a hobson-jobson is what happens when English speakers hear a non-English phrase and analyze it as English. For instance, "mushroom" derives neither from "mush" nor from "room"; it's from French mousseron. There are other foreign phrases whose pronunciation has altered drastically as they became naturalized citizens of English. Most […]