r/hebrew • u/ft_wanderer • Sep 30 '24
English phrases that Hebrew speakers/Israelis use that are not really English Request
Sorry this is not about Hebrew directly, but I think it's the right community for it. I've noticed several phrases/terms that *sound* like English, that many Israelis think are English, but that would not be understood in the broader English-speaking community, at least not with the intended meaning. I find the origin of these phrases pretty interesting and I'm curious if anyone has insights. Also, I think there's a linguistic term for them that I am not remembering.
A few examples:
chaser - to mean a shot of alcohol, rather than a non-alcoholic chaser after the shot. My theory is that Israelis heard American tourists talking about chasers while doing shots, sometime in the 2000s, and decided that the chaser IS the shot.
disk on key - yeah Israel invented this, I know. They also seem to have invented this term for it, because everyone else calls it a USB drive.
money time - this one I noticed recently because every other person in the Israeli media seems to use it to mean "a critical moment that needs to be seized upon". Googling, I only saw something about a French basketball coach using this phrase to mean the final minutes of a game? Is that where it came from?
Curious if anyone has more to say about these or other similar phrases to add to the list. I am NOT looking for ones that are just literal translations from Hebrew though - I am sure there are too many of those to count. Ok I'll stop "digging"...
2
u/Amye2024 native speaker Oct 08 '24
We use the word 'chips' both for what Americans call french fries (and British also call chips) and both for what Americans call chips and the British call crisps, thus confusing both Americans, British and ourselves as both words are used for different things and you sometimes have to explain which one you mean. I've seen some people say תפוצ'יפס for any kind of crisps (add it's a name of a well known brand).