On 4/19/05, John Forbes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> We need an Academie Arabaise > to sort it all out.<snip>
Yes, because the world doesn't have enough layers of bureaucracy right now <LOL>. Back when I lived in Quebec, The Office de la Langue Francaise (the Quebec government department committed to the promotion and purification of the French Language) used to have TV ads on the French stations, to stop the "Anglicization" of the French language. Since Montreal is a bilingual city, many English words have crept into the French language, much to the disdain of the purists (of course, the opposite is true: many French words are regularly used by Montreal's anglophones, but no matter). So, these ads exhorted francophones to "fait le magazinage" instead of "fait le shopping", and to mange "les chiens chaudes toute garnee" rather than "un hot dog all-dress". My favourite was one where they literally made up a word: "Ce n'est pas un 'hamburger', on mange un 'hambourgeoi'!" Ya gotta love bureaucrats, especially motivated ones... <vbg> cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
