Yves Arrouye wrote:
>
>France's Acad�mie fran�aise is good at that: they recently invented c�d�rom
>(CD-ROM; gets used because it's quite okay), and m�l (mail, for e-mail;
>nobody uses it except to make fun of it).
>
M�l (which I oppose) was never proposed as a word but as an
abbreviation for "messagerie �lectronique" (we are told as t�l is one
for t�l�phone on business cards). "Le symbole : M�l., pour � messagerie
�lectronique �, peut figurer devant l'adresse �lectronique sur un
document (papier � lettres ou carte de visite, par exemple), tout comme
T�l. devant le num�ro de t�l�phone. � M�l. � NE doit PAS �tre employ�
comme substantif." And strictly speaking the Academy only approved this
abreviation and did not proposed it, the Ministry of Culture did.
http://www.culture.fr/culture/dglf/dispositif-enrichissement.htm
http://www.culture.fr/culture/dglf/dispositif-enrichissement.htm
In Qu�bec, one usually reads, hears and sees "courriel" (courrier+�l
ectronique). The steps of the main metro station of Montr�al were some
time ago painted in purple and yellow with "Yahoo! Courriel" painted on
them. I won't deny that from time to time, one will not have to suffer
a Hexagonal "mail"...
Patrick Andries
--- http://hapax.iquebec.com
"In the first edition of this dictionary it was said that in many
compounds whose second element begins with h the h is silent unless the
accent falls on the syllable that it begins; thus philhellenic and
philharmonic should not sound the h; in nihilism also it should be
silent. Here too the speak-as-you-spell movement has been at work, and
though the COD [Concise Oxford Dictionary] does not favour the
pronunciation of the h in these words, it is in fact often heard, and
some modern modern dictionaries give it. See "a", "an", "I",
"honorarium", "hotel" [also references to old silent h pronunciations in
herb, hospital, humble, humour] and "wh" [hw sound [re]gaining ground
under the influence of the speak-as-you-spell movement in England]"
(Fowler's Modern English Usage, 2nd ed., 1965)
