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

wordy

[Moblaster]

i don't speak French but even I can figure out that's a big mealy mouthful... hard for six or seven syllables to come up with two... couldn't they even compromise with a more streamlined "multifonc" ?

Re:wordy

[TWX]

This isn't the first time they've had this sort of problem. What is funny though, is that we're almost to the point where there's no reason to use "smartphone" anymore since nearly all mobile phones are this type. It's like there's no need to refer to your new TV as a flatscreen TV, because all new TVs are flatscreen TVs. If they'd made this ruling about a decade ago it would make sense, but now, not so much.