9/22/2008

The French Don't Know Enough French to Understand Their Civil Servants Anymore

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/feb/18/france.jonhenley1

France's mighty bureaucracy has acknowledged the havoc wreaked by the near-total impenetrability of the language it uses by publishing a dictionary of the 3,000 most commonly used administrative terms which the average French person does not understand.
n the first serious attempt to make Gallic red tape more user-friendly since Francois I dropped Latin as the country's official language in 1539, Le Petit Décodeur - or The Words of the Administration in Plain Language - promises "an end to unfortunate misunderstandings between you and officialdom".

The 250-page book, published with the government's orientation committee for the simplification of administrative language, is part of a drive to improve the image of state institutions by weeding out as much obscure, austere and outmoded language as possible, said Eric Woerth, a junior minister for state reform.

"Many people, including most of those who most need to, give up communicating with the state simply because filling in the forms and understanding the letters is so hard," Mr Woerth told Le Parisien.



French speakers will no doubt have a laugh reading this:

Liquider votre retraite (literally, "to liquidate your pension"), a frequently used administrative phrase that panics pensioners, does not mean payments will be halted, but that the amount is being calculated before being paid, the book says. Many phrases are meaningless unless one is well versed in the jargon: habiter un apartement bourgeoisement means not to use one's flat for one's work; sous le présent timbre means at the above address; véhicule de tourisme means car; tierce personne means someone else.



Hat tip: Damian

No comments: