Getting your own words back
Posted: 09 May 2008 12:26 PM   [ Ignore ]
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Apropos of Pavlos’s posting in the “Loanwords” thread, can anyone think of loanwords in English that themselves are loanwords from English in the language they are borrowed from.  I can think only of the somewhat obscure “redingot”.

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Posted: 11 May 2008 01:57 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]
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Actually the other way round, but maybe just as interesting; I have pointed out a couple of times before that when English borrowed Dutch ‘droog’ and ‘doop’ they were perfectly decent words, but when we got them back as ‘drug’* and ‘dope’ they had become something illegal.

I know who won’t get my lawn mower.

* some sources start from a Romanic origin of this word.

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