和製英語と英語の違いを説明するシリーズLost in Translation
第4回の今日は”ショートパンツ”です。
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lost in Translation Part 4 ショートパンツ（Shorts）
Tyler Ayala
In Japanese, the phrase ショートパンツ is sometimes a little confusing to foreigners since this phrase doesn’t exist in English. What Japanese would call ‘short-pants’ we call just ‘shorts.’
If we hear the phrase ‘short-pants’ we think that this is contradictory since pants and shorts are opposite of each other. Some native-speakers might guess that your meaning is actually shorts; however, they might think that you are talking about Capris.
Capris
Shorts
As you can see, there might be some confusion if the native-speaker assumed you meant Capris. This confusion might be compounded further if you are talking about a man since Capris are mainly worn by women.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
※The English described in this blog is from an American perspective. Cultural reactions and vocabulary might be different in other countries like Canada, Britain and Australia.