[x-pubpol] France bans "hashtag"

[Joly MacFie]

http://socialtimes.com/english-word-hashtag-gets-a-french-alternative_b117259

The French government has decreed that the English word “hashtag,”
popularized by Twitter, should be eschewed in favor of the French
translation “mot-dièse.”

The decree comes a body established in 1996 to encourage the
“enrichment of the French language” rather than employing the
anglicisms that sometimes creep in.

Government officials are held to using the French alternatives, but
average citizens will not be prohibited from using the term “hashtag”
— although it is especially difficult to pronounce in French.

Technology is a particular area of the concern for the body, as with
the new forms of communication come new words to describe them —
largely in English.

The decree comes in the same week that a French court ordered Twitter
to reveal the identities of French users who participated in the
anti-semitic meme that employed “mot-dièses” such as #unbonjuif and
#unjuifmort.


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