For courriel / e-mail : what word is used for the @ sign. “Vers” ? “ à “?
chez
Or arrobe, arobase
I’ve heard “at” as well ; but yeah “arobase” is probably the most common.
I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by what various languages call that sign. In Polish, in an email address, it’s called a “małpa” (“monkey.”) In Hungarian, it’s “kukac” (“worm” or “maggot.”)
Wikipedia has an article about it. Under French, it says (with a specific note about Quebecois):
In Hebrew it’s called a “strudel”, which I personally find adorable.
And the pronunciation ends in -s and has the stress in the last syllable.
Edible certainly.
Québec French: I haven’t heard the expression “A commercial” in a long time, at least from people under 60. “Arobas” is the term used in radio ads or when discussing the character with (IT) coworkers. If I’m asked to state my e-mail address verbally, I’ll use “à”, as in “à GMail point com”.
I’ve found the French will understand ‘at’, but a lot of people who speak French as a second language have a difficult time with the names of all the punctuation characters.
Maybe a better way to phrase the question is how would a French speaker say an email address?
I would say “a commercial”: for example, bump a commercial straightdope point com. I feel that just saying “à” could be misunderstood as the letter a. I’m well under 60.
Et pourquoi “a commercial”?
Well, the Académie tried to make courriel happen. It’s basically a straight transliteration of email : a shortening of “courrier électronique” just like email stands for electronic mail (and “pourriel” for spam, a pun on “pourri” which is French for rotten).
It thankfully didn’t happen, and I will strangle anyone I hear using courriel in earnest. It sounds horrible to my ears. But most people just say “mail” (no e) and “adresse mail” ; or sometimes “adresse électronique” for older folks.
Because it was used in some commercial communications back when there was such a thing as typing pools; the name is decades older than email.
That happens with any second language. Sometimes it’s because the names are so different (why do EFL people refer to “two dots” by the name of the end of the intestine?), sometimes because the characters themselves are used in one language but not the other (its proper name is not the literal translation of “upside-down question mark”, it’s signo de interrogación de apertura or “opening question mark”; conversely, “what do you mean, that’s not a dash it’s an m-dash?”).
According to Wikipedia, it’s been used in commerce since the Renaissance to refer to the unit price of goods.
Courriel doesn’t come from the French Academy, though they may have started suggesting it at some point. It comes from Quebec, is very commonly used here, and is how I’ll generally refer to electronic mail when speaking French.
I use “at”, but most people tend to say “arobase” (Belgium).
I’ve never heard “chez” used in this context.
“Courriel” hasn’t really caught on in Europe, true. Personally, I don’t care much for it, but I just *love *“pourriel” for spam. It’s way more descriptive and fun than its English equivalent for once.
Well sure. Aside from an old corny comedy routine people don’t pronounce the punctuation marks.
Punctuation marks get pronounced all the time: what they don’t get so much is named, but even that is done routinely in situations such as when giving an address (both physical and electronic).
Yes, that’s the term I’ve always heard used.
In French, “shit” is “merde!” Just thought I’d throw that in 
Not sure what you mean by ‘pronounced’, but here’s Victor Borge demonstrating what I meant about a comedy routine.