American English is changing
By now, most of you know that the English language is being changed as we speak. The American Congress has ordered that their cafeteria change the names of French fries and French toast. They shall be henceforth known as Freedom Fries and Freedom toast. This change is a protest that the French aren't in agreement with the American position in the U.N. council. The new terminology is being extended to other venues. As a result, translators need to update their glossaries.
French Kissing and French Letters
I'll admit that my interest in this at first was personal. As the father of 3
daughters, I was concerned that some cads might convince them that "freedom
kissing" was the patriotic thing to do. Kids today don't know what a "French
Letter" is, so we need not have that discussion. Anyway, the girls told me to
stick my head back in my computer and so here I am.
Translators need new glossaries and guidelines for the word "French" in American English
Let's ignore the politics and my personal life and discuss what
this means to the translation industry. We will need new
glossaries, so that translations to and from English do the right
thing. We also need guidelines for the translation industry.
For example, is the French President of the French Republic now
the Freedom President of the Freedom Republic?
If we do that, don't we then have to rename fries to
something else again once the Freedom Republic votes against the
U.S. again?
What do we call French-Canadian's now?
Do we make new maps with places renamed such as Freedom Congo?
A real stickler is what to do with French Freedom Fighters...
What about people who's first or last name is French?
One example is the
actor French Stewart.
Another is the butler Mr. French (played by actor Sebastian Cabot)
in the old (1966-1971) TV show Family Affair.
Are the French-named actors and actresses to be renamed?
Will we rename the popular movie "The French Connection" to "The Freedom Connection"?
I am not even sure what to call my French-English glossary now.
Is it a Freedom-English glossary?
Actually, it is English that is changing so maybe it should be a French to Freedom-English glossary!
Language Identifiers
What is the correct language identifier to use? Probably, we must replace the identifier for French as spoken in France fr_fr with x-freedom. I am not sure about the Canadian French identifier fr_ca, since they didn't vote against the U.S.A.
French Terms
- French bed
- French bread (I replace references to these with "Hero bread" Kinda goes with the freedom trend.)
- French chalk
- French cheese
- French chop
- French class
- French cleaning
- French Canada, French Congo, other places with French in their names.
- French Connection
- French donut
- French doors
- French dressing
- French endive
- French Freedom Fighters
- French fries
- French glossary, dictionary, etc.
- French heel
- French horn
- French kissing
- French lace
- French language
- French leave
- French letter
- French maid (I am gonna miss these...)
- French manicure
- French pastry
- French peril
- French poodles
- French president
- French republic
- French Riviera
- French revolution
- French Stewart
- French telephone
- French tickler
- French toast
- French vanilla
- French windows
- French wine
- French's® mustard, and their other products
Note:French's is an American company. - Mr. French and other people with French in their names.
- People nicknamed Frenchie, Frank, Frances, Francis, et al.
- Franceska, Francesca
- Francophone, Francophile, Francophobia
- Frankly speaking
- Saint Francis
- San Francisco