July 18, 2003
YOU'VE GOT COURRIEL!
Uh oh. The French - the people who just made booing a national crime - are at it again:
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.
I'd like to envite the entire French nation to stand in unison and recite these words: "Je suis un petit lapin effrayé d'un pays." (Go here to find out what that means.)