cyber.confusion@french.language
Tue December 10, 2002 10:31 AM ET
PARIS (Reuters) - French is such a rich language that it now has, by state decree, two words for "@" -- the "at" sign that has become a worldwide symbol for the Internet -- but only one official way to pronounce it.
A special commission struggling to defend French against the spread of English in cyberspace has decided that the popular e-mail sign can be named either "arobase" or "arrobe."
But the august commission, which failed a few years ago to impose the name "jeunes pousses" ("young sprouts") for Internet start-up companies, decreed that the French should only call it "arrobe" when they give out their e-mail addresses. The problem is that most people say "arobase" -- the traditional French name for the "at" sign -- and have never heard of the old Spanish measure of weight "arroba" that the commission used to create its new term.
"Nobody uses arrobe," lexicographer Christine Ouvrard told the daily Liberation after the decree was published in the Official Journal Sunday. "The bureaucracy may issue its decrees, but in dictionaries, we reflect how people use words."
The same decree concerning the "at" sign also advised the French to say "le site" instead of "le site web" to describe a Web site.
Even if these new terms never catch on, France's ever-active linguistic guardians have not worked completely in vain.
They have successfully fought off other English terms, imposing "ordinateur" for computer, "logiciel" for software and "informatique" for computer science.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=1882079
Tue December 10, 2002 10:31 AM ET
PARIS (Reuters) - French is such a rich language that it now has, by state decree, two words for "@" -- the "at" sign that has become a worldwide symbol for the Internet -- but only one official way to pronounce it.
A special commission struggling to defend French against the spread of English in cyberspace has decided that the popular e-mail sign can be named either "arobase" or "arrobe."
But the august commission, which failed a few years ago to impose the name "jeunes pousses" ("young sprouts") for Internet start-up companies, decreed that the French should only call it "arrobe" when they give out their e-mail addresses. The problem is that most people say "arobase" -- the traditional French name for the "at" sign -- and have never heard of the old Spanish measure of weight "arroba" that the commission used to create its new term.
"Nobody uses arrobe," lexicographer Christine Ouvrard told the daily Liberation after the decree was published in the Official Journal Sunday. "The bureaucracy may issue its decrees, but in dictionaries, we reflect how people use words."
The same decree concerning the "at" sign also advised the French to say "le site" instead of "le site web" to describe a Web site.
Even if these new terms never catch on, France's ever-active linguistic guardians have not worked completely in vain.
They have successfully fought off other English terms, imposing "ordinateur" for computer, "logiciel" for software and "informatique" for computer science.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=1882079
