"AP) Goodbye "e-mail", the French government says, and hello "courriel" — the term that linguistically sensitive France is now using to refer to electronic mail in official documents. The Culture Ministry has announced a ban on the use of "e-mail" in all government ministries, documents, publications or Web sites, the latest step to stem an incursion of English words into the French lexicon. The ministry's General Commission on Terminology and Neology insists Internet surfers in France are broadly using the term "courrier electronique" (electronic mail) instead of e-mail — a claim some industry experts dispute...." "Courriel"???? Sounds like skin cream to me.
Let's keep a sense of proportion. The French are often banning English words but mostly ina forelorn hope than with effect - though my French Toshiba has switched to courriel for e-mail, and that's Microsoft for you! When I first started living in France for several months in a year, the word for "ticket" was "billet" but in time everything switched to "ticket" as per the main toll road systems. The French for "stop" is "arrete" but on ALL road signs in France everywhere, even on "D" roads, including painted on them, it says "STOP". Only in Quedec have I seen "Arrete" which tells me that language lunacy and extremism is a North American phenomenon (like "accreditation" by people who do not run Business Schools but live off them). I am typing this on my ordinateur, which is a long way round of saying "PC" or "laptop". C'est la vie. Who cares? Please, do not be beastly to the French. They have not got over the fact that they took over Britain in1066, the French elite assimilated with the English and have done a better job of it that those they left behind.
I agree with the Professor. My brother is a computer geek who travels the world doing "something or other" (sorry, over my head) and I asked him once how he manages the language differences. He said "There's no problem, everyone speaks English." The French government can ban all the words it wants and it won't matter a bit. People are learning English as it is the language of opportunity (at least it is at this point in history - - - wait until that Chinese giant awakes). Jack
The French are a bunch of low class peasants who pretend to be upper class. The whole world is laughing at them for this. Le' Pew. It stinketh.
> The French for "stop" is "arrete" but on ALL road signs in > France everywhere, even on "D" roads, including painted on > them, it says "STOP". Bien sûr! Arrêt is what it says on bus stops. > Only in Quedec have I seen "Arrete" There was a lot of contention about this in Québec. The final ruling was that a stop sign could say either "STOP" or ARRÊT, but not both, because that would be redundant. Some municipalities near Ontario refused to replace their bilingual signs. > I am typing this on my ordinateur, which is a long way round > of saying "PC" or "laptop". Ordinateur means "computer". It's also applied to mainframes, and it's only one syllable longer than "computer." > Please, do not be beastly to the French. They have not got > over the fact that they took over Britain in1066, the French elite > assimilated with the English and have done a better job of it > that those they left behind. The Normans weren't the French élite. They were a bunch of Vikings who couldn't even pronounce French properly -- which is why we have "wage", "warden", and "warranty" from Norman French, alongside "gauge", "guardian", and "guarantee" from Parisian French.
