‘LIKE Canute trying to stop the tide, the French government is desperately fighting the spread of English words in the language. Its latest step is to ban the word ‘e-mail’ in all its ministries, documents, publications and websites and replace it with ‘courriel’.
The Culture Ministry ruled: ‘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 trouble is that most of France hasn’t got a clue what it means. Marie-Christine Levet, president of French ISP Club Internet, said: ‘Protecting the language is normal, but e-mail’s so assimilated now that no one thinks of it as American. Courriel would just be a new word to launch.’
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Posted: 21st, July 2003 | In: Strange But True Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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