6 tricky Russian words that only pretend to be English

A tuxedo is not smoking at all, and strings are not about underwear at all. Here are some words you shouldn't use if you want to show off your perfect English.

Magazine online English schools Skyeng.

1. Face control

The word is often used when talking about nightclubs and casinos. It looks as much as possible in English: face - face, control - control. But for some reason it is not in the Oxford Dictionary or on the website of some nightclub in Los Angeles (We’ve got a strict face-control, they say, we have strict face control).

It turns out that the word "face control" was invented by the Russians. The Americans or the British have never even heard of him. The fact that you may not be allowed into the club because you did not come out face-to-face, the Americans and the British are also not aware. Abroad, they can deploy at the entrance only if you are under 21 years old, you are very drunk, or your clothes do not correspond to a certain dress code. By the way, the word dress code is just fine, it's really English.

2. Hitch-hiking

It seems that the word "hitchhiking" has a very English origin (auto from automobile and stop). And this word is sometimes used in other countries - for example, in Poland and Greece.

In fact, autostop is a word that is not familiar to native English speakers at all. The British and Americans call this type of travel hitchhiking. And the verb "to hitchhike" is to hitchhike or just to hitch.

3. Clip maker

In the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, edited by Efremova, we read: "A clip maker is a specialist in creating video clips." It seems that everything is logical: to make - to do, the -er suffix indicates a person. There is one but: clip is not translated as "clip" at all. The word has quite a few meanings, and the closest is "a short fragment from the movie." Usage example: Let’s watch a short movie clip ("Let's watch a short movie clip").

So clip has nothing to do with music. Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber recently released not a clip, but a music video. In English, it would be most correct to call this person a music video director.

4. Killer

In Russian it is “a person who is paid to kill someone”. And in English, killer is simply "killer", that is, any person who has committed a murder (not necessarily by order). For a hitman, the British and Americans use a different word - hitman.

5. The tuxedo

If you tell a foreigner "smoking", he will think about cigarettes - and nothing else. Once upon a time in English there really was the word smoking jacket - a jacket that was worn to smoke cigars. But the carriers you happen to communicate with hardly remember that time. Say tuxedo (or tux for short) if you are in the States. Or a dinner jacket - in Britain this option will also work.

6. Thong

It also sounds very foreign, because string is translated as "string, string". Thongs really do resemble strings. But in English strings are just strings. This is also the name of musicians in a string orchestra. And thongs are thongs.