pseudo-colloquial

alternative pseudocolloquial

1. Apparently, but not actually, colloquial.

   A key feature of the colloquial or pseudo-colloquial register in Hebrew appeared to be a system of T/V distinction with V-forms in 3 sg.m./f.

   2020, Sonya Yampolskaya, “Evidence of a T/V distinction in European Hebrew”, in Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, volume 7, number 1, →DOI, page 146

   2 more examples

   Robert Lowell, first announcing flatly that Racine is untranslatable, puts his Alexandrines into speakable, nontinkling English couplets, a great feat and one that goes far to contradict his own statement. Jacques Barzun’s translation of Beaumarchais is properly sparky and pseudocolloquial, but inevitably less impressive, because less of a problem was involved.

   1961 August, Phoebe Lou Adams, “Potpourri”, in The Atlantic

   This selection from Gadsby, a novel by E. V. Wright, has a number of traits that might be brought out in a careful literary exegesis – its mannered use of pseudo-colloquial phrase perhaps the most prominent trait: ‘bunch of bright young folks’, ‘up-and-coming activity’, and so on.

   1974 January, Richard W. Bailey, “Review: Stylistics Today”, in Foundations of Language, volume 11, number 1, →JSTOR, page 135