Czechwords

It is possible that English, that absurd, thrill-seeking, piratical devourer of words found in other languages, has more loan words than any other. It's a matter of welcome aboard! when they're picked up, man-handled, reduced, enlarged, twisted and thoroughly used and abused until fashion moves on. Rarely are they tossed overboard: if unused, they will be found deep in a hold somewhere, swilling bilge-water. Some words, however, will never get on board, no matter how hard they try, as in this video:

 

James Nicoll, writer and commentator on such things, once wise-cracked:

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary.

Czech is no stranger to the marauding Anglický: they came, they saw and then nicked. Therefore, for your amusement, below is a list of the strange 'borrowing' –read thievery– from this west slavic language, shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia (with additions). Some I've not heard of, such as cesky fousek and sokol, but that's no surprise because I dropped my subscriptions to Facial Hair Monthly and Fresh Faced Youth Weekly.

• Absurdistan (in Czech Absurdistán) – word created by Eastern Bloc dissidents, passed into English mainly through works of Václav Havel.
• Budweiser – after Budweis, the German name of Budějovice Budějovice, a city in Southern Bohemia.
• Cesky Fousek – from Český fousek (Czech fousek); word fousek is connected with the beard and moustache (lit. facial furnishings). A Czech breed of hairy doggy.

• Dollar – from Tolar (German: Thaler), the Czech name for the 16th century Bohemian silver coin mined in Údolí svatého jáchyma.
• Haček – a diacritic, literally 'little hook', e.g. 'č' is roughly pronounced 'ch'. Also known as "caron".
• Howitzer – from houfnice, a 15th-century Hussite catapult; houf meaning crowd or band
• Kolache – from koláč or koláček. A popular pastry number.

• Koczwarism – Sexual asphyxiophila in medical slang; after František Kočvara, the celebrated Czech composer who, by the semi-auto-erotic manner of his death, became the first recorded death by such.
• Moldavite – from Moldau; Moldau is German version of pretty green crystals.

• Pils, Pilsner, Pilsener – after Pilsen, the German name of Plzeň, a Czech city. The name of the city is derived from Old Czech plz (damp, moist).
• Pistol – from píšťala, a 15th-century Hussite firearm (however, alternative sources have been suggested).
• Polka – from Polák or polský, a Czech dance named in remembrance of the November Uprising of 1830; or from Půlka, in English half because of its tempo.
• Prazsky krysarik – form Pražský krysařík. A little doggy, sometimes called a Prague Ratter.

• Robot – from Czech robota (labour, drudgery), introduced in 1920 in Karel Čapek's play R.U.R.
• Semtex – a plastic explosive named after Semtín, part of the city of Pardubice, where it is manufacturered.
• Sokol – physical education movement (originally from the Czech word sokol, meaning "falcon") carried out by fresh-faced youths.

• Tunnelling – a colloquial term for financial fraud committed by a company's own management or major shareholders. Widely used in the Czech Republic (and Slovakia) since the first half of 1990s to describe the massive asset stripping during transition from planned to free economy.