An anglicism is a word borrowed from English into another language, but considered by a fair part of the influential speakers of that language to be substandard or undesirable.

By contrast a Britishism is an expression peculiar to British English, from an outsider's point-of-view. The term "Britishism" is an Americanism. There is an article discussing American and British English differences, and for English worldwide look at the English Language entry.

Occasionally governments of both Quebec and France have undertaken strenuous efforts to eradicate anglicisms, with limited success, although in modern times there has been a more relaxed attitude. Sometimes a pleasant-sounding word is coined in French and succeeds in replacing the anglicism — for instance, logiciel ("software"). However, the Académie française's directives are not always considered very appropriate; for instance, online chat is supposed to be called causette or parlotte, which are old-fashion words for chat that nobody ever uses. (Note that in Quebec a different solution has been found to translate online chat. The word clavardage is increasingly common. This neologism is a portmanteau word coined from the words clavier (in English, keyboard) and bavardage (in English, chat). This is proof that there is more than one way to skin a cat.)

Quebec French and European French tend to have entirely different anglicisms for historical reasons. Quebec French picked up its anglicisms from a gradual process of linguistic borrowing resulting from living among and alongside English speakers for two and a half centuries since the British Conquest of 1759. European French, on the other hand, mostly adopted its anglicisms in recent decades due to the post–Second World War international dominance of English. Thus, the people of Quebec and France will rather amusingly often consider each other's anglicisms as barbarous, while considering their own perfectly normal.

An example of a European French anglicism not used in Quebec:

sweat : short for sweatshirt, but pronounced like the English word "sweet" (!)

An example of a Quebec French anglicism not used in France;

frencher : to French kiss

As can be seen above, sometimes an anglicism will have a different meaning from the original English word, due to abbreviation or other reasons.

Because English itself borrowed a great amount of French vocabulary after the Norman Conquest, some anglicisms are actually old French words that dropped from usage over the centuries in French itself but were preserved in English, and have now come full circle back into French. For instance the verb to flirt comes from the old French conter fleurette, which means "to (try to) seduce". This expression is no longer used in French, but the english "Frenchism" to flirt has made its way back over the Channel and has now become an anglicism in French. A nice example of two cultures flirting with one another.

Sometimes an expression incorrectly translated from the English becomes more successful than the original one. For instance, a tax heaven comes from an incorrect translation by French people who mixed up haven and heaven. So they spoke about a paradis fiscal, an expression that inspired the English speaking people who retranslated into tax heaven.

Note, some words were borrowed from English into French centuries ago, such as clown (pronounced "kloon") and spleen (in French the latter means "melancholy", and not the "spleen" organ). These are not anglicisms, but rather are considered perfectly good French words fully accepted by the Académie française. Perhaps the only difference between an anglicism and a full-fledged French word is the test of time.

Under Benito Mussolini efforts were made to "purify" Italian of anglicisms and other foreign "contaminants." Even the polite lei form was considered a Spanish introduction, and voi was preferred by Il Duce.