Hector Martin

By the way, if you're wondering what all this talk of a potential "overshoot" of COVID-19 cases in Tokyo is about, congratulations. You're witnessing the birth of a word of "wasei eigo", or "English made in Japan".

Of course, what they actually meant is an explosion in cases. "Overshoot" means something different (going too far, exceeding an intended target), and the Japanese transliteration オーバーシュート (ōbāshūto) meant the same thing, as far as I can tell. Until now.

Now that a public official has incorrectly used the word with a different meaning, and the media are going along with it, and since it is a word whose original meaning the general public would not be familiar with, it is now about to become the new common usage.

And thus, オーバーシュート (ōbāshūto) from now on stops meaning "overshoot" and starts meaning "explosion", and Japanese-native English learners are more confused, and English-native Japanese learners are more confused, and a new trap for translators to fall into is born.