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Hartmut
Hartmut
3 hours ago

Some countries launched campaigns, made laws to rid themselves of loan words. Some did so with a certain creativity like Iceland where computer has become tölva, a portmanteau from tala and völva (=> “number prophetess”). France was pedantic and not much short of making it a misdemeanor not to use the prescribed neologisms. Germany did in WW1 with official dictionaries to give people guidance with which words to replace real or perceived French imports.
Although it went far over the top, quite a bit actually stuck and superfluous French words got replaced by fully suitable German equivalents. Some older purists had come up with simply ridiculous substitutes for words no one normal would have considered foreign*, like Nase (nose). I doubt the old Germans needed the Romans to get a word for this part of anatomy or would have gone for Gesichtserker (face oriel) as more natural. Dörrleiche (jerky corpse) for mummy did not catch on either.
A newer trend is to invent English terms for items that are not used by actual English speaking people. E.g Handy for cellphone or Beamer for video projector. They seem so fitting that most Germans do not even know that those are fake loans.

*admittedly some of their proposals got into common language but usually as alternatives not replacements.

Pro Bono
Pro Bono
2 hours ago

In British English, a “beamer” is usually a car made by Bayerische Motoren-Werke. It can also be a high full toss at cricket, or, but I’ve not heard this usage for some time, a big smile.