English Words Used in Buenos Aires

JoeBlow said:
Then there are words that are English but aren't used as they are in English, like "zapping".

Or is this used in British/Australian English to say "flip around the channels"?

Anybody from Britain/Australia?

Zapping is used in french, meaning to flip around the channels
 
JoeBlow said:
Thanks.

Is it an Angliscism?

Indeed, and I believe it appeared in the 1980s, due to a cable company named Canal Plus : they launched an everyday 5 minutes program that was a sort of a best-of the TV of the previous day. Hence in 5 minutes, you could see 30 different sequences from various channels, this program was named "zapping" (still on the air nowadays). I think it comes from there.
 
French jurist said:
Indeed, and I believe it appeared in the 1980s, due to a cable company named Canal Plus : they launched an everyday 5 minutes program that was a sort of a best-of the TV of the previous day. Hence in 5 minutes, you could see 30 different sequences from various channels, this program was named "zapping" (still on the air nowadays). I think it comes from there.

A friend just told me that they have the same type of program here, too. Who knew!

Thanks again!
 
Well, I couldn't seem to find anything on the web but off the top of my head I can think of these: shopping (to mean mall), living (to mean living room), internet, check in, mail (only used for email), delivery, ticket (used for receipt)... Hmm, I can't really think of anymore, hope this helps, good luck!
 
JoeBlow said:
Then there are words that are English but aren't used as they are in English, like "zapping".

Or is this used in British/Australian English to say "flip around the channels"?

Anybody from Britain/Australia?

I have never heard this used in aus or uk.. you flick through the channels, or surf.

I find it funny how companies use english here, when you would think they have money to spend on making sure it sounds right in english.

Yesterday a guy in front of me had "rugby spirit" on his kevington jacket. The "spirit of rugby" sounds better to me and rugby spirit just sounds stupid.
 
davonz said:
I find it funny how companies use english here, when you would think they have money to spend on making sure it sounds right in english.

That's certainly true, though I can vouch for the fact that Spanish is regularly slaughtered in the US. For example, there is "San Francesca" street ("san" is only used in Spanish for male saints; female saints take "santa" as in Santa Baraba).
 
I've heard zapping used for flicking through the channels in the UK, and the remote can be called the zapper. Not everyone uses this though.
 
There's a chain of children's clothing stores named: Cheeky, Baby & kids - no plural for Baby
 
There are a lot of compound nouns or adjectives that get shortened into nouns on their own. Like Country (to refer to country house) or jogging (which means a tracksuit, which I guess must have been shortened from 'jogging pants' or something.

There are also words that get corrupted in their pronunciation: PERformANCE instead of perFORmance and CUT-E-RIN instead of catering.
 
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