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But it really is a silly childish thing. They made up "courriel" just so they didn't have to use "email". But electronic is électroniques in French (and both ul
by drats 15y ago
But it really is a silly childish thing. They made up "courriel" just so they didn't have to use "email". But electronic is électroniques in French (and both ultimately come from the Greek) and the English word "mail" is derived from Old French. It's an opportunity to underline the French in English and shared heritage I would have thought.
As the other comment points out, the things you point to weren't mandated by the State; I think the whole idea of the State controlling the language in such a way is insane.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- cdavid 15y agoThe usage of couriel instead of email is not enforced by the state, but is suggested by the French Academy (which is not a governemental organization). The State can enforce the usage in the documents it produces itself, but this is different. Courriel is not made-up, it was actually coming from French Canadian. While this may be a bit ridiculous (being that I have never heard anyone in France saying courriel), this is not a big conspiracy against Anglo-Saxons. I would also note that in the US, every mention of fuck or other obscene word is beeped when put on air. How is it that different (everyone knowing what is said, like everyone knows that facebook or twitter is what is being talked about instead of social media). Of course, presented as one of this silly little thing found in any culture, this would not make an interesting blog post anymore.
- kelnos 15y agoI would also note that in the US, every mention of fuck or other obscene word is beeped when put on air. How is it that different...? It's very different. Bleeping expletives is a result of (idiotic) anti-obscenity laws. Banning talk of Facebook or Twitter is (officially, anyway) about not advertising commercial entities on news outlets, and some misguided notion of "fairness" between various social networking services.
- cdavid 15y agoBut the article is about the over-regulation in France - in that aspect, you have the same idea of banning some language. The reason why is different, but the idea of controlling language itself is not specific to France.
- kelnos 15y agoWe're agreeing, actually. This is exactly the point I was trying to make. Yes, it's the same idea in the sense that specific words/language is banned. But the reasoning behind it is very different, and that's what matters. I don't agree with banning words like "fuck" from American airwaves, but I'm somewhat ok with it because it's done because collectively the people don't like them. France's ban on "Facebook" and "Twitter" is for weakly-supported economic "fairness" reasons.
- mturmon 15y agoWhat I said is that both initiatives are somewhat petty, and somewhat comparable (government officials deprecating "foreign" terms). The article fails to recognize that both cultures have their peculiarities, and treats this trait as being peculiar to the French. I agree that when the President, vice-President, and SecDef of the U.S. hold up another country to ridicule, as President Bush and his leadership team did with regard to France ("old Europe" and all the rest), it is indeed different in many ways than a set of French broadcasting bureaucrats forbidding certain words. I'm just not sure the difference works strongly in favor of your argument that the French case is more outrageous.