Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 15:55:55 +0200 From: Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr>, Brad Knowles <brad.knowles@skynet.be> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/alpha/alpha clock.c Message-ID: <p0511170ab90ff9968880@[10.0.1.4]> In-Reply-To: <20020521105107.D71209@lpt.ens.fr> References: <200205162121.g4GLLGQ43405@freefall.freebsd.org> <20020516220511.A9DBE380A@overcee.wemm.org> <20020517114010.A57127@regency.nsu.ru> <20020519100324.GK44562@daemon.ninth-circle.org> <20020519134348.I67779@blossom.cjclark.org> <p05111722b90de01cc974@[10.9.8.215]> <20020520195703.A79046@dragon.nuxi.com> <p05111702b90fb30b64bb@[10.9.8.215]> <20020521105107.D71209@lpt.ens.fr>
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At 10:51 AM +0200 2002/05/21, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > Sorry, what's the contrary meaning? In France, today, at least, > "email" means the same thing it does in the US or the UK. Really? How many people are in France (the CIA World Factbook at <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fr.html>; estimates that there were 59,551,227 there in 2001)? Of those, how many are technically inclined? Of those, how many are familiar with the concept of e-mail, either through MiniTel or the Internet? Looking at the same page listed above, I see that in 1998 there were 34.86 million telephone land lines in use, and 11.078 million mobile phone lines. There were 55.3 million radios (1997), 34.8 million televisions (1997). Finally, there were 9 million Internet users (2000). Even assuming that all French Internet users agreed on the same use of the same word, I would not be so bold as to claim that: In France, today, at least, "email" means the same thing it does in the US or the UK. When less than seven percent of the entire population of the country uses the Internet! Moreover, I would not make this statement in reference to the word "email" in particular, since this word already has an existing meaning of which we are aware, and which applies to a substance that virtually every Frenchman or Frenchwoman is likely to have encountered at a very young age (enameled tiles in the kitchen and kitchenware). Checking <http://dico.isc.cnrs.fr/dico/tr/search_en?r=email>, I note that there is no equivalent of this word found in the dictionary (although e-mail doesn't have an equivalent, either). Contrariwise, looking at <http://dico.isc.cnrs.fr/dico/tr/search_fr?r=%E9mail>, we find the word "enamel". Note that the "Semantic Atlas" at <http://dico.isc.cnrs.fr/en/>; was put together with the assistance of Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, and explicitly targets both "normal" words and technical terms. Searching the EU translation database (see <http://europa.eu.int/eurodicautom/Controller>), looking for "email" comes up with only one hit, whereas looking looking for "e-mail" comes up with six hits, one of which includes the same hit as found for "email". Searching in <http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Dictionaries/World_Languages/F/French/French-English-French/>, "email" comes up with zero hits whereas "e-mail" comes up with one. Searching in <http://directory.google.com/Top/World/Fran%C3%A7ais/R%C3%A9f%C3%A9rences/Dictionnaires/>, "email" comes up with only one hit (in a french/german dictionary), whereas "e-mail" comes up with three. Checking <http://directory.google.com/Top/World/Fran%C3%A7ais/Informatique/Terminologie/>, "email" comes up with only one hit, whereas "e-mail" comes up with two. If you want to take real-world usage as your guide to what is proper, as opposed to the standard French proscriptive dictionary method, then I'd have to say that it appears that most people speaking the French language seem to use "e-mail" instead of "email". If you instead want to take the standard French proscriptive dictionary approach, then I'm sure you can choose your dictionary that shows things the way you want, and I can probably choose a different dictionary that shows things the way I want. -- Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles@skynet.be> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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