German Pseudo-Anglicisms

A pseudo-anglicism describes a word borrowed from English but used in other languages in ways that native speakers may not easily understand. For a native English speaker learning German, these pseudo English words can be a common source of misunderstanding, and German has more than its fair share of them!

Most people would think of a "cutter" as someone in the clothing trade who cuts cloth, or a cutting machine or a boat, but in German der Cutter (or in this case, die Cutterin) has a different primary meaning:

Es gibt eine Regie, es gibt einen Tontechniker, es gibt eine Cutterin.

There is a director, there is a sound technician, there is an [female] editor.

Caption 32, Christian Brückner - Synchronstimme von Robert De Niro
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If somebody offers to play Flipper with you in German, they aren't talking about playing with a talking dolphin:

Früher, da stand in jeder anständigen Kneipe ein Flipper.

There used to be a pinball machine in every decent pub.

Caption 19, Flipperautomaten - Kunstwerke für flinke Kugeln
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If a German speaker ever asks you to find out about an Oldtimer, he doesn't mean an old man:

Sie sammelt sämtliche Informationen über Oldtimer.

It gathers all the information about classic cars.

Caption 39, Porsche 356 - Der erste Porsche
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In English news, a Shooting would be a tragic event, but in German:

Ich nehm' euch mit auf die coolsten Shootings.

I'll take you along to the coolest [photo] shoots.

Caption 10, Palina Rojinski - News for Original Girls
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The German word Shooting is short for Fotoshooting, whose meaning should be pretty obvious by now!

Further Learning
Das Happy End, das Handy, das No-Go, das Public Viewing, der Smoking — the list of German words based on misconstrued English is a long one. Take a look at German Wikipedia and see if you can find some "fake English" words used in context on Yabla German.