1315: Misunderstood Loan Words: vokzal Jul 17, 2018

While there are plenty of loan words taken for words with no previous single translation, sometimes they are adopted out of confusion. The Russian word for a central rail station is вокзал (vokzal) which takes its name from the London Vauxhall, though it is debated why this is. Some will say that this is from a Russian delegation who went to Vauxhall station on the London Underground and misinterpreted it to mean 'central rail station', but Russian public rail line had opened a few years before this could have happened, so unless the station were somehow renamed later, this is unlikely. Otherwise, the word comes from the gardens nearby the station in London; the Russians created their own version, and the name of the Vokzal gardens were then mistakenly applied to the station. Either way, there was some misunderstanding when it came to the English-to-Russian transliteration and later translation, but over enough time and contact, this is bound to happen to between any two languages.
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