France Says 'Au Revoir' to the Word 'Smartphone' (smithsonianmag.com)

Hoping to prevent English tech vocabulary from entering the French language, officials have suggested 'mobile multifunction' as an alternative. An anonymous reader shares a report: The official journal of the French Republic, the Journal officiel, has suggested "internet clandestin" instead of dark net. It's dubbed a casual gamer "joueur occasionnel" for messieurs and "joueuse occasionnelle" for mesdames. To replace hashtag, it's selected "mot-diese." Now, as the Local reports, the latest word to get the official boot in France is smartphone. It's time to say bonjour to the "le mobile multifonction." The recommendation was put forth by the Commission d'enrichissement de la langue francaise, which works in conjunction with the Academie Francaise to preserve the French language. This isn't the first time that the commission has tried to encourage French citizens to switch over to a Franco-friendly word for "smartphone." Previous suggestions included "ordiphone" (from "ordinateur," the French word for computer) and "terminal de poche" (or pocket terminal). These, it seems, did not quite stick.

Comments

UTF8

[dmbasso]

which works in conjunction with the Academie FranÃaise to preserve the need of UTF8

ftfy

Le chain des tetes de bloche

[WillAffleckUW]

C'est le meilleur choix

Stupid French...

[JoeDuncan]

...they don't even have a word for "entrepreneur"

Re:Stupid French...

[mrbester]

There was an attempt by some amateur, but it was just a homage to cliché.

Re:All french everywhere

[TWX]

But it does make for an amusing plot-point when the cop stops the truck with the spraypainted expressions on it to cite the dual-language law and help them spraypaint the truck with french translations...

Re:Whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

They call it a Royale with Cheese!

"American phone"

[Anonymous Coward]

They can get back at us for "French Fries".

Re:Does this actually work?

[DontBeAMoran]

You mean like when we say things like despite the constant negative press covfefe, Trump is still popular?

Re:It's hard to feel sorry for the French language

[DontBeAMoran]

I think the main reason why english became so popular world-wide is because it's one of the easiest language to learn.

Re:All french everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

Now imagine, if you lived in the only English province/state within a country whose primary language wasn't English and everyone from outside your province/state just call for English to disappear. Wouldn't you want to protect your culture and language?
This is the thing that English folks today don't seems to get, they can't put themselves in the shoes of others due to how prevalent English is in the world now. Saying ignorant things like "well if they need to do this to protect the culture of the Language, maybe it isn't worth protecting", because it doesn't apply to them, it doesn't affect them, so they don't understand, hence the hate.

WTH is UTF8?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been on /. for many years and I've never heard of such an acronym as "UTF8", and neither have the site maintainers for /.

Obl.

[bgarcia]

French: ... Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, sixty-ten...
Other languages: **stares**
French: **stares back**
French: ...sixty-eleven, sixty-twelve, sixty-thirteen...
French: ...sixty-sixteen, sixty-ten-seven...
Other languages: *shutting eyes*
French: ..sixty-ten-eight, sixty-ten-nine...
Other languages: *hands over face*
French: ...four twenties! :) Four twenties one...