My brother-in-law was astonished when I said I was getting Clare a beamer for Christmas. An SUV or a soft-top?
She’s an wonderful artist, among her many other attributes. Using a video projector to superpose an image on the canvas or paper can be an excellent, time-saving way of getting the outlines in proportion.
- A beamer looks like an English word but it isn’t.
- Well, it is. But it’s an everyday term for a BMW. Probably widely used because the pronunciation “double-U” makes it a five-syllable acronym in English, which is on the lengthy side.
- The contraption that casts a beam of light onto a screen is a projector.
Even a projector was a pretty pricey Christmas present for my budget…
Prevalence: anecdotal only. I admit I’ve never seen this mistake in a document I’ve had to correct.
Frequency: — It’s on all the lists of Dunglish mistakes, however.
Native: — Though I’ve done it myself, as you can see.
Advanced Dunglish 
After saying that the five syllables of BMW make it a bit long, I should point out that I did own a car for a few years that Clare had an intense dislike of and rechristened to six syllables: the Mase-fucking-rati…
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“I admit I’ve never seen this mistake in a document I’ve had to correct.” I have… but I guess from your POV that’s still “anecdotal”.
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