Sigh This thing about labeling laws is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard from a bunch of English-speakers who take having everything in their own language completely for granted.
Look, I was in Spain and everything was in Spanish. That’s because Spanish people needed to read it. Okay? And in France, (gasp!) things are in French! And in Holland, things are in Dutch! And in Italy, things are in Italian! Oh my god, customer information is required to be in the language that the people who are going to use the bloody thing actually speak, so they can arrange not to eat something they’re allergic to or kill themselves with the appliance or power tool they just bought!
See beyond this ridiculous, blinkered worldview and try to imagine, just for a second, that things are different outside les États-Unis, okay?
The point, that you seem to be missing, is that in the U.S. everything isn’t in English, and that works out OK.
Even here, in whitest Iowa, my place of work has all the signs in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. “But wait!”, you say, “they’re still in English.” They are, but there are also stores that cater specifically to that group of people who aren’t native English speakers and don’t provide translations of every word into English.
Even in the really WASP areas I bet you could find a Mexican joint that has menu items in gasp Spanish without an accompanying translation. We, as moderately adaptable humans, are capable of functioning in a society where we don’t know the meaning of every word. I think that some of the people on here who are being taken as anti-French are, in fact, just amazed that the French choose to be mollycoddled by their government to protect them from the evils of words not in French. grienspace:
Ok, so I don’t know my racist terms very well. The point I was trying to make is that being Latino means you are from any of a number of countries, being Jewish means you have a specific heritage or you’ve chosen it as a religion, whereas being French is just a nationality. All jovan asked for was a difference.
Believe it or not, the same is true of Quebec and of Spain, at least, despite (or perhaps within) the labeling laws. Some people seem to have a very distorted view of what these things entail. I’m surprised you’re not aware of this, or maybe I shouldn’t be.
TV ads are short, transitory things - cluttering them up with subscripts is silly. anyone unfamiliar with the foreign terms would just ignore them - why a legally-mandated translation?
you attempted to portray the translations as being required for consumer info. my point being that such info is readily available in any likely language WITHOUT THE GOVT REQUIRING IT!
possibly illegal. you can defend this law?
we have already established that the translation requirement extends well beyond necessity
note the word “background” as in “origin”
um… the history of French warfare in the 20th centuary - fact
the maginot line - fact
translation law - fact
“factual” is binary. either it is or is not. you concede my points to be factual, merely complain that I am not being “nice”.
welcome to the pit.
again, if there is something which I have represented as fact, which, is not fact, let me know. otherwise, shut up about “factual”.
um…
living in Ireland does not make one Irish. There’s biology, history, all kinds of stuff involved…
yes, I am a citizen of the USA, by birth.
was there a point here?
and about the tee shirts - I’m really curious to know if the French are more French than the Quebecois.
bad news - from Matt’s post, it appears that the Quebecois will let menus slip by un-translated.
Come on France! you can be more arrogant than that!!!
Matt, friend - we are not talking about national languages - we are talking about (for now) legally mandated translations for which there is no justification
Happyheathen, I give up.
You’re right. France and french people are incredibly arrogant because they actually want the labels to be printed in french, and rightly deserve to be chastized for this awful offense against the most basic human rights.
You’re an extremely aknowledgeable person, with a deep understanding about anything related to WWII, european history and legal systems, and an ability to notice their flaws which defies comparison.
Since your great mother was german and the wife of your second cousin is irish, it makes you an extremely qualified person to speak about anything related to europe, to use derogatory terms to refer to your fellow german citizens and allows you to rightfully criticize these countries you intimely know.
You seem to have an interesting definition of the word “we”.
Look, I’m a translator by profession. When things are to be translated, the agency requesting the translation has every right in the world to specify the technical vocabulary that will be used during the translation. This doesn’t change when it’s the government.
Furthermore, as technology evolves and cultures mix, the government is as much an authority as anyone to suggest a term for some new lexical item. Whether or not anyone uses it is another question, but this doesn’t make the promulgators of that term any different from any other agency that specifies any other piece of official vocabulary.
It’s also not true that they’re making these things up in total defiance of the way people actually speak. Le logiciel (software), le courriel (email) - “officially” mandated items that are now in common use.
I don’t see how you get to be insulted that they’re choosing not to borrow words from English. Since when does it matter to you how other people talk in a language you don’t speak?
(And furthermore, it can go the other direction too - here, everyone says “la fin de semaine” even though the semi-official term is “le weekend”.)
This is the same bloody thing that happens every time someone starts insulting the French, and only the French - they start to come up with examples of what they regard as egregious behaviour. Look, if some homophobe shows up and says, I don’t like gays because they act all flamey, the answers are: 1) not all of them, 2) even if some of them are, so what, and 3) fuck off, you troll.
I don’t even want to think about what the response would be if it dealt with Mexicans, or South Africans, or Israelis, or (heaven forbid) Americans. So how come the French are fair game?
“Because they’re snotty! And they’re linguistic chauvinists!”
It seems interesting to note that the French are equipped with child-naming laws. Apparently, you can’t name your offspring whatever you want. It has to be approved by a panel. Ref. here. The site is in French, so I used babelfish, and it translated pretty well. Other poking around found sites talking about how you can only name your child after a French saint, or give them a suitable name that runs in the family. Don’t know how valid that is. Some of the laws date back to Napoleon: cite. Sadly, I can’t find my name on any of the lists : (
On a limb here, so don’t hold me to it, but from what I have been reading, the French are legislating common sense. If you want your product to sell in France, you put a translation with it. If you want your kid to breed, you don’t name them Messiah Superfly. It would seem that laws for this stuff are unneccessary.
we have established that the law goes well beyond “labelling” - every damned word MUST be translated.
can (whatever remaining Jews) buy kosher matzo (labels in only Hebrew and English) in Paris?
(this is your big chance - it was outlawed in Quebec
(you are in Paris, FR, right? not Paris TX? you seem to be confused about residence vs. origin, so I thought I’d check))
Matt - once more - if there is anything I have asserted which is untrue, point it out. if not, shut up - truth is an absolute defense. and why, do you suppose, it is “the French, and only the French”? need pictures?
yes, I’m being snippy. I’m entitled. because I said so.
no, I dislike them BECAUSE they are arrogant, and have a history of Nazi collaberation, sell nuclear technology to Iraq, tried to kill the leadership of Greenpeace (and sank the original Rainbow Warrior in the process), conducted open air testing of nuclear bombs long after everyone stopped, and a bunch of other things.
this is another of those “cause” vs. “effect” things - don’t worry, you will eventually be able to distinguish the two.
I am in no way critisizing them for making laws in their own country. America does have its share of dumb laws (sodomy, anyone?) I was just trying to point out that it seems that they have a vested interest in keeping their “Frenchitude” and not homogeonizing with Europe. This interest is noted in certain laws that they have. Grendel, you have a wonderful sense of jumping to conclusions. Nice straw man, but a little more hay in the legs. It needs something stronger to stand on.
Beats me. What’s English for “fianceé?” Or “rendezvous?” Or “entrepreneur?” Or “confidant?” Or “lingerie?”
The flippant answer is, of course, “betrothed,” “meeting,” “businessman,” “intimate” and “underwear.” But they just don’t quite carry the same connotations, do they? So why did we English speakers need those words, when the French words did just fine? Could it be that they just don’t carry the same je ne sais quoi?
matt, we’re really not all like that. Really. I swear.
Yes, but like most bigots you seem unable to distinguish between individuals and groups. I don’t say all Americans, or all dopers, or any other group you belong to are all a bunch of assholes just because happyheathen happens to be an absolute fuckstick.
Blockhead! You see that’s the difference. I would never say something as obviously moronic. You obviously don’t mind being a moron. You put the rest of America to shame, you xenophobic uncultured little warthog.
happyheathen, you are one of the most socially inept, despicable and loathsome apologies for a creature that crawls around on this board.
For the record; the laws requiring product labeling in the predominant national language are EU wide – with 11 official languages that are very much divided across huge population groups it makes some sense. France has somewhat harsher language protection laws, I personally disagree with them, but that doesn’t make France or the French worthy of the bile that is oozing from the loony fringe in this thread.
The kind of behavior that some people are displaying in this thread exists on both side. It’s vile, offensive, insufferably ignorant and part of a spiral of intolerance that only serves to sow discord. Each uniformed insult gives the opposite side more firepower:
That’s silly if you ask me. Especially when coming from the French who on average speak fewer language than many other European nationals, but with folks like happyheathen and Wikkit around to give America an undeserved bad rap, and a squadron of equally brain dead representatives somewhere in France that vicious circle of insults and intolerance just spirals on.
Actually, this law has been repelled 7-8 years ago and dated back from the revolution. You could only give your child traditionnal names. That would include names of catholic saints (say, Pierre), foreign usual names (say, Mohammed), shortened traditionnal names (say, Line), regional names (say, Yann in Britanny), actually anything which was usual. What you couldn’t do was making up a name because you liked the sound of it, or giving your child the name of a thing you liked, or using the family name of a celebrity, etc…Also, names which could expose the child to ridicule (say, making a pun with your child name and your family name) could be refused.
When you registered your newborn child at the town hall, the clerk could refuse the name you choose. If you disagreed with his decision, you had to ask a court to cancel it. Usually, official only refused names which could potentially be harmful for the kid, but some of them could be pretty anal.
For instance, this happened in my family, when my brother decided to call his daughter “Pomme” (apple), since this wasn’t a traditionnal name and the clerk thought that other children could make fun of my niece (which was remotely possible, since “pomme” has a rarely used derogatory meaning). My brother was upset and pissed off the clerk, who then refused to register a minor variation of an existing name (Alize instead of Elise).
The new law the other way around. The official must register the name, and ask a judge to change it if he thinks that this name could be harmful for the child. This to avoid that a name would be refused just because the official is anal as opposed to actually intending to protect the kid’s interests.
There were no such official list. The original revolution law stated that only names appearing on a calendar (at this time, I assume it would mean saint’s names) and names of famous historical character from the antiquity (say, Pericles, but not Newton) could be used. It was later extended to any usual name.
Yep. But if you believe that everybody is gifted with common sense, you’re an unredeemed optimist. Courts regulary refuse names which make a pun, names of the father car’s brand, names which are usually given to dogs, etc… And the childs have to be protected from the decisions of moronic parents.
It just struck me, upon reflection, that clairobscur and Sparc speak English many times better than (I’d bet) Wikkit or happyheathen, complaining about the insularity of the French, could speak French, German, or Swedish. And for trumpeting his Irish ancestors, I bet Mr. heathen cannot speak Gaelic, either. Truly ironic, it is. In fact, if Sparc and clairobscur had not previously said so, I would not guess that either was a non-native speaker of English.
I wish, I wish, that “American” was not so synonymous worldwide with “xenophobe.”
Oh, wait. Happyheathen. Silly me, I forgot whom I was dealing with.
The truth of the existence of stupid laws (to the extent that they do exist, and are not the fantasies of paranoid Americans and English Canadians) and the existence of individual arrogant Frenchmen is not a defence for your hatred and mocking of an entire nationality. I have never heard as many people attempt so stupid an argument for any nationality other than the French. I have no idea why this is.