> OPENING THE NET TO "CYBERNAUTES"
> In the unending war to prevent English domination of the French-language,
> French-speaking Internet promoters, from France's Minister of Culture to
> cyberspace crusaders in Quebec, are working on the first online
> French-searching software and a French vocabulary, or Net slang, for the
> Internet. The goal: to allow francophone "cybernautes" to use the Internet
> without submitting to English. (Montreal Gazette 11 Mar 96 A1)
They think they can CREATE jargon! Phrases like "surfing the web",
cyberspace, spiders, crawlers, hackers, IMHO, ROFL, netiquette,
[snip], deletia, :-) (oh I forgot - that one's international), sig,
*sigh*, homepage, BigBrother.... the list goes on and on and on.
"L'information, il veux etre libre?"
Oui, mais pas le langue.
(Forgive my poor French).
A language can be created, but if the people don't use it the language
will die. OTOH, "designing slang" is like "giving your right arm to be
ambidextrous" - it's just not possible. Sounds to me like a junior
high school Language Arts project.
On another topic we were discussing... This also from Edupage.
> COMPUTER GAMES FOR GIRLS
> There are relatively few computer games marketed to girls, although more
> than 6 million U.S. households that include females between ages 8 and 18
> have multimedia computers. A survey by Sex Roles Journal says that 85% of
> young women think computer games would be fun to play if there were more
> titles designed with them in mind. One developer of games for girls says,
> "Most games are violent, and while girls like the action at first, after
> awhile they get bored." (U.S. News & World Report 18 Mar 96 p69)
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J. Michael New Michael.New@NRC.Ca
Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Institute (613)991-4371
National Research Council of Canada home: (613)230-7783
"Star Trek transporter: the ultimate Cut and Paste"
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