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#11
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"Gooneybird" wrote:
"Larry Dighera" wrote in message .. . On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 20:31:57 +0300, bsh wrote in Message-Id: : 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 action of the French Culture Ministry would seem a bit moot given the fact that English is now the official language of the European Union. I don't know how moot it is, but it sure looks childish and petty to me. I seriously doubt that very many Frenchmen really care that the five letter acronym (email) is rooted in the English language rather than the French. It's shorter than the Gallic substitute for it, and therefore more convenient even for French users of the Internet. Next thing we know, some brain-dead idealogue will be insisting that we remove "a la carte" from all of our English language menus. Hopefully, we won't sink to that level. George Z. I'm especially sensitive to this kind of crap, living as I do in Canada and needing to travel through the foreign country of Quebec. I've taken of late to electing to travel through the US so as to avoid Quebec entirely. Can you imagine the effrontery of them passing a LAW which forbids showing the English Language on public signs right here in Canada?!?. Disgusting altogether. -- -Gord. |
#12
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Larry Dighera wrote: On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 20:31:57 +0300, bsh wrote in Message-Id: : 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 action of the French Culture Ministry would seem a bit moot given the fact that English is now the official language of the European Union. Shouldn't that be, "a bit meut"? |
#13
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On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 00:15:14 GMT, "Gord Beaman" )
wrote in Message-Id: : I'm especially sensitive to this kind of crap, living as I do in Canada and needing to travel through the foreign country of Quebec. I've taken of late to electing to travel through the US so as to avoid Quebec entirely. Can you imagine the effrontery of them passing a LAW which forbids showing the English Language on public signs right here in Canada?!?. Disgusting altogether. -- What's the alternative, another Northern Irelandesque jihad for Grate Britain? |
#14
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On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 02:40:25 GMT, David Windhorst
wrote in Message-Id: : Larry Dighera wrote: On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 20:31:57 +0300, bsh wrote in Message-Id: : 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 action of the French Culture Ministry would seem a bit moot given the fact that English is now the official language of the European Union. Shouldn't that be, "a bit meut"? But, of course mon ami! Merci. |
#15
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I was skiing at Chamonix years ago, when I met a French-Canadian in the parking lot. He was horribly depressed at the state of the French language in the home country. The parking lot was dubbed PARKING instead of stationment, but even worse in his opinion was LE WEEKEND. On the other hand, even longer ago I met a Frenchman from Normandy in the Paris youth hostel. He'd just driven a hitchhiking American girl to the hostel, where of course she had dumped him, so he was comforting himself with a bottle of wine at the commons table. He too was hideously depressed (perhaps it goes with the language?) at the state of spoken French in Normandy. The worst thing he could say about it was that it sounded very similar to French as spoken in Quebec. (Both these conversations, I might point out, were held in English. Though the French regard it as a predator language, they are pretty handy with it.) all the best -- Dan Ford email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9 see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm Vietnam | Flying Tigers | Pacific War | Brewster Buffalo | Piper Cub |
#16
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"Cub Driver" wrote in message ... I was skiing at Chamonix years ago, when I met a French-Canadian in the parking lot. He was horribly depressed at the state of the French language in the home country. The parking lot was dubbed PARKING instead of stationment, but even worse in his opinion was LE WEEKEND. On the other hand, even longer ago I met a Frenchman from Normandy in the Paris youth hostel. He'd just driven a hitchhiking American girl to the hostel, where of course she had dumped him, so he was comforting himself with a bottle of wine at the commons table. He too was hideously depressed (perhaps it goes with the language?) at the state of spoken French in Normandy. The worst thing he could say about it was that it sounded very similar to French as spoken in Quebec. (Both these conversations, I might point out, were held in English. Though the French regard it as a predator language, they are pretty handy with it.) On reflection, one never hears Frenchmen complaining about French words and phrases adopted into the English language, does one. A bit of "le standard a deux", n'est ce pas? (^-^))) George Z. |
#17
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Gooneybird wrote:
: On reflection, one never hears Frenchmen complaining about French words and : phrases adopted into the English language, does one. A bit of "le standard : a deux", n'est ce pas? (^-^))) Well, thanks to William the Conqueror, English is a mixture of French with the original Germanic Old English, anyway. It is only natural for the French to make further intrusions. While 'Franglais' is really very, very ugly. Emmanuel |
#18
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And the French wonder why a lot of the world find them irritating!?
Myc "bsh" wrote in message ... PARIS - 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" is a fusion of the two words. "Evocative, with a very French sound, the word 'courriel' is broadly used in the press and competes advantageously with the borrowed 'mail' in English," the commission has ruled. The move to ban "e-mail" was announced last week after the decision was published in the official government register on June 20. Courriel is a term that has often been used in French-speaking Quebec, the commission said. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ith__e_mail__1 |
#19
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"Mycroft" a écrit dans le message de news: ... And the French wonder why a lot of the world find them irritating!? No we don't, we don't give a rat's ass. -- _________________________________________ Pierre-Henri BARAS Co-webmaster de French Fleet Air Arm http://www.ffaa.net Encyclopédie de l'Aviation sur le web http://www.aviation-fr.info |
#20
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On 19 Jul 2003 16:52:22 GMT, "Emmanuel.Gustin"
wrote in Message-Id: : Larry Dighera wrote: : The action of the French Culture Ministry would seem a bit moot given : the fact that English is now the official language of the European : Union. There is no single official language of the EU. When it comes to official publications, all EU languages are equal. (Just imagine how people would react, with justification, if official documents were only available in a language many of them do not understand.) For everyday administrative work, there are a number of preferred languages (five IIRC) of which English is one, but French another. Emmanuel Indeed it appears that there are 11 official EU languages: http://www.ibeurope.com/Issues/LAN.htm There are currently eleven official languages of the European Union - Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. Following enlargement it is likely that a further eight official languages may be added : Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Slovene. Official EU documents are made available in all official languages of the European Union. Internally the Commission works in three procedural languages, English, French and German, and material generated inside the Commission for internal use only is drafted in one or more of these and translated only between those three if needed. ... http://www.delchn.cec.eu.int/en/eu_g...tm#eulanguages What are the official languages of the European Union? What are the official languages of the European Union? The very first Regulation enacted by the Council of what is now the European Union, was concerned with language. On 15 April 1958. The Council laid down that the official languages of the Member States should be both the official languages of the Community and the working languages of the Community institution. Every Member State's official language is an official language of the EU. As several Member States share the same official language this means there are 11 official languages. They are (in alphabetical order): Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish. On the other hand: http://www.absolutelyjokes.com/ethni...-language.html European Union Decision On Official Language The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase-in plan that would be known as "Euro-English". In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of the"k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter. In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away. By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen ve vil tak over ze vorld! |
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