on a different note. France has been banning curtain english sounding words from their language. I guess young people started calling weekends "le weekend". There is some language panel that decides these type of things to maintain the French culture. I guess the panel took offence to such words as "le weekend" and "e-mail" so they banned it.
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Fear of English pushed the government in France to act in the defense of French. To counteract the popularity of songs in English being broadcast on the radio, the government passed a law stating that at least 40 percent of the songs must be French. A similar law was passed about movies.
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SOURCE Quote:
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The French government has passed a slew of laws since 1975 banning foreign words from advertising, official documents, scientific meetings and publications, radio and television. But they're powerless to stem the flow of English into the vernacular, diluting what the French call "La Belle Langue", the beautiful language...The Académie Française, the elite body established more than three centuries ago to maintain French language supremacy, has lobbied for years to keep linguistic imports out of common usage. But even while "le cash-flow," "le deal" and "le marketing" were banned from the latest edition of the Academie's official dictionary, "le dead-heat" and "le boom" slipped in. Often, it's because there's an English word where there's no French one.
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SOURCE
all too amusing