Seriously :rolleyes:

[John Dunn]

Is this a joke???
French banning 'e-mail' from language??

[Andrew Monkhouse]

Unlike most languages, French is "protected" by the Academie Francaise. They ensure that the French language stays French - no creeping in of words that are not French.
Contrast this with English - we will gladly apropriate any word from any country. Most other countries will also use any word that is common usage in other countries.
This is very obvious when looking at computer parts listings in different countries. I can work out what all the parts are in Dutch or German, because in general they use the English acronyms (HDD, CPU), and even if they spell out the words, because they used the acronyms they spelt out the words in English. However where something was not an acronym then the native word was often used: the Dutch word for "memory" is "geheugen" (try and pronounce that if you are not Dutch ).
But I gave up looking at the 1 or 2 examples of French price lists I saw - too many translations from English into French.
Regards, Andrew

[Michael Morris]

I think this calls for "tit for tat" diplomacy! We should ban "entrepreneur" for "buisness dude". :roll:

[Matt Cao]

Hello,
I think France since they lost France-Indochina colony. They just make one mistake after another. They practically afraid their own citizens using other country language specially English.
Just my 2 cents,
MCao

[John Dunn]

So, if a French-dude does happen to let the word 'e-mail' slip, does this constitute a curse or merely the usuage of a foreign language?

[Matt Cao]

Hello,
For adult probably a curse, or a wack on the head with a bagget. But I worry about student-age group. Up till the 80's students use to get their hands smacked with a straightedge if the hapless happens to use English in school parameter. I am not sure the coporal law punishment changed or not.
Regards,
MCao

[John Dunn]

Hey Mapraputa/Eugene:
Is this what it was like in Russia, when we came up with Astronaut instead of Cosmonaut?? :roll:

[Richard Hawkes]

Someone told me that in North Korea all westernised words are banned. In S Korea you'd say "computer" and "banana", in the north you'd say the Korean translation of "electronic calculating machine" and "yellow bendy fruit".
Unfortunately I couldn't find any info on the Internet this, and of course it assumes that someone in the North has actually seen a banana ...

[Mapraputa Is]

Hey Mapraputa/Eugene:
Is this what it was like in Russia, when we came up with Astronaut instead of Cosmonaut??
Why would we accept your "Astronaut" if we already had our own Cosmonauts?
Seriously, communists did not particularly liked borrowed words, but they did not object too much either. I read that during Bregnev's time (1970s-early 1980s) Russian borrowed foreign words at the speed of 6-7 words a day.
Of course now there are no restrictions at all, and for unknown reasons I (me, myself) personally am not terribly concerned with the purity of the Russian language as I perhaps should. Steal, steal, steal!

[John Dunn]

No, I wondered if Russians felt offended that we didn't use their word and instead came up with our own word??

[Mapraputa Is]

No idea. I was too young to remember. I suspect Russians simply called your "Astronauts" "Cosmonauts", and this solved out the whole problem.

[R K Singh]

Originally posted by John Dunn:
No, I wondered if Russians felt offended that WE didn't use their word and instead came up with our own word??

Just thinking, why you did not use already existed word.

[John Dunn]

RK: why you did not use already existed word.
I believe - (and recall I was recently out of diapers at the time) - that the US wanted its own program, its own name. And it may have been a good strategy, as we set foot on the moon first. Or wait a minute... was that really a hollywood job?
Actually, I read a great book on this subject:
Chariots for Apollo: : The Untold Story Behind The Race To The Moon by Joshua Stoff & Charles R. Pellegrino is a great book about the founders of the Space Movement.
I found this VERY, VERY interesting and informative. I never realized how far ahead the Soviets actually were to the US. It is truly sad that they did not blow us away in that race. We nearly blew it off after the fire that killed the Apollo 1 crew of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee back in Jan '67. The Soviets also had a ship and launch pad blow up - except they pretended it never happened .
The virtue and the folly of the Soviet program got replayed with Mir, but in fairness they did get our Astros back home after the latest failure.
For anyone that is even remotely interested in the space program, I recommend this book - it'll probably take a couple of days to buzz through it, as you probably won't be able to put it down.
[ July 19, 2003: Message edited by: John Dunn ]

[Matt Cao]

Originally posted by Ravish Kumar:

Just thinking, why you did not use already existed word.

Hi Ravish,
Insecurity and paranoid country or group applies it to control its citizens or members and to alienate themselves. Eventhough that country or group thinks it superior than others.
For examples:
1. People told me that during the Vietnam War, a lot of US commandos were easily capture by the North Vietnamese because the unwitting commandos used the wrong or obsoleted lingo.
2. African-Americans like to use Ebonic lingo to communicate with each others in prevent themselves from fully assimilate into "Anglo-Saxon" society and does not want the "outsider" know their information. But the reality, it barry them from achieve the same level as the "Anglo-Saxon" society because that the African-American is not an economy controller position.
3. American female teenagers like to use Valley lingo as the way to express among themselves without adult understanding. The sad thing, they cannot land a respective positions in society when they passed their teen years.
Regards,
MCao
[ July 19, 2003: Message edited by: Matt Cao ]

[Damien Howard]

2. African-Americans like to use Ebonic lingo to communicate with each others in prevent themselves from fully assimilate into "Anglo-Saxon" society and does not want the "outsider" know their information. But the reality, it barry them from achieve the same level as the "Anglo-Saxon" society because that the African-American is not an economy controller position

Not all African Americans use ebonics, just those with little or no education.
Most educated African Americans I know do not use ebonics. Some use a little slang here and there, but so does everyone and I wouldn't classify that as ebonics.
My gf and her family do not use ebonics, and they are not sellouts either.

[Matt Cao]

Hi,
Thanks for clarity.
Regards,
MCao

[Jim Yingst]

Not all African Americans use ebonics, just those with little or no education.
I've known some well-educated African Americans who could speak in "ebonics" (though one in particular would :roll: at that term) and might occasionally slip into this mode in certain circumstances. On the other hand, at least one African-American friend of mine could speak ebonics no better than I. Perhaps you meant that only people with poor education would use ebonics exclusively?
Matt's initial comment here does have some truth, IMO. Certainly it's not true of all African Americans, but there are some who (consciously or unconsciously) use ebonics as a means of promoting a certain cultural pride or separatism. And some who avoid it for that same reason. (Well, the separatism part more than pride.) If we just replace "African-Americans" with "some African-Americans" in Matt's statement, I think it's a valid point.
As for astronaut/cosmonaut - I agree that it was probably a national pride thing. Though it's also reasonably possible that both groups developed their own terms independantly, and saw no need to change later when they learned of rival terminology. I'm not sure - was the US even working on space flight before the initial Soviet successes became known? If they were, they might have just continued to use the term they had first chosen. Alternately if US space research only got seriously started after initial Soviet success, then using "astronaut" would've been a conscious assertin of national pride.

[John Dunn]

3. American female teenagers like to use Valley lingo as the way to express among themselves without adult understanding. The sad thing, they cannot land a respective positions in society when they passed their teen years. :roll: :roll:
It sounds like you are talking about chimps. This is just a utter misrepresentation of the facts. How did you decide the correlation between teenagers speaking in a Valley slang and their eventual inability to function in society as adults?? :roll: :roll:

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Matt Cao:
3. American female teenagers like to use Valley lingo as the way to express among themselves without adult understanding.

In 1983 anyway.

[Matt Cao]

Hi,
I have the following for your reading while searching for something more caliber.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4261622,00.html
It is not a death sentence or unchangeable behavior. Just one cannot achieves to the maximum potential of one talent because of the habbit of using such jargons.
Regards,
MCao

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Matt Cao:
I have the following for your reading while searching for something more caliber.

Interesting article. To tell you the truth, I had never really noticed this phenomenon. But I will start paying more attention.

[John Dunn]

And she agrees that it's a menace to women trying to clamber the corporate ladder: "Uptalk robs them of credibility and authority. It is especially disempowering for women."
If this sounds rather alarmist, let Deborah Tannen have the last word: "I think teenagers tend to pick this up simply because other teens talk like that and it's catchy and makes them feel good that they're talking like their friends. Most give it up when they get older and don't want to sound like teenagers any more.

The last line is important, and without it the rest of the quote is not very accurate.
Btw, most young boys go through a stage of being quite disrespectful in their speech toward females, and the vast majority also outgrow that. Teen-age boys also go through a period where they curse more and do eventually grow out of that, or at least learn how to shut it on and shut it off.

[Mapraputa Is]

Here is a MULTILINGUAL WEBLOG GLOSSARY in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Galician, and German.
I learnt some French:
lurk - badauder
password - mot de passe

[ July 19, 2003: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[Michael Morris]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
Here is a MULTILINGUAL WEBLOG GLOSSARY in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Galician, and German.
I learnt some French:
lurk - badauder
password - mot de passe

[ July 19, 2003: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

How about "Map est la femme fatale" Map?