Modernize and enrich the French language
To remain alive, a language must be able to express the modern world in all its diversity and complexity. Living, the French language is certainly, far from being frozen in everyday practice, it evolves with the changes of French society. It is even abundant in scientific and technical fields where, faced with the temptation to borrow foreign languages, vigilance is essential to accompany the creation of French terms.
1972 – 2022: 50 years of French scientific and technical vocabulary enrichment policy
In 2022, we celebrated both the fiftieth anniversary of the interdepartmental mechanism whose mission is “to promote the enrichment of the French language, to develop its use, particularly in economic life, scientific work and technical and legal activities”, and the sixty years of political will: In 1962, General de Gaulle already demanded the substitution in military vocabulary of all the terms borrowed from English by French terms.
This collective undertaking, based largely on the volunteering of several hundred successive specialists from the business, research and university sectors, has made it possible to endow the French language with several thousand terms, a number of which now belong to the common language as database, carpooling or infox.
10 key terms of the year 2023
- The stellar pancake, instead of stellar pancake, which is not a Candlemas crepe in distress in space.
- Thetext phishing, instead of smishing: Emails no longer have a monopoly on fraudulent messages.
- Theparticipatory housing, instead of cohousing, because living well together can start from the conception of the collective habitat.
- The green finance, instead of green finance, environmental protection not going without putting your hand in your pocket.
- Theprofessional boredom, instead of bore-out, because exhaustion is not the only cause of ill-being at work.
- Theinfodemia, instead ofinfodemic, because, in the age of social networks, both true and false information spread as quickly as a virus.
- Thesea grabbing, instead of ocean grab(bing), which penalizes artisanal fishing and the people who live on it.
- The chemobiology, instead of chemobiology or chemogenesis: 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for work in this field.
- The pedagogical dialogue-maker, to use artificial intelligence wisely.
- The parasport, because the Paralympic Games also promise us remarkable performances.
10 key terms of 2022
- Theopen access, instead of open access, that allows as many people as possible to consult research.
- Themalicious alert, instead of swatting, because even emergency and rescue services can be targeted by ill-intentioned people.
- Theflagship application, instead of killer app: an innovation whose impact is immediate.
- The station wagon, instead of breakdance or breaking, a dance that will receive its first Olympic titles in Paris in 2024.
- The quantum confinement, because this area of research opens unexpected doors.
- The competitive video game, instead of e-sport: Today, the video game moves from the chamber to the international championships.
- The unicorn, instead of unicorn, because the financial value of a company can sometimes make you dream.
- The car-sharing or solo car-sharing, to be able to prefer carpooling whenever possible.
- The approach uonly health or comprehensive health, instead of one health, because it becomes difficult to ignore the close links between the health of humans, animals and plants.
- The turning point, instead of game changer, the term of an era that is not stingy of radical changes in all areas.
10 key terms of the year 2021
- The library, instead of backpack,which makes it possible to keep digital certificates of our know-how and know-how.
- The biomimicry, instead of biomimicry, to distinguish it once and for all from the biomimetic (biomimetics).
- The coastal compression, instead of coastal squeeze, because marine erosion is increasingly threatening coastlines.
- Theerasing or culture of erasure, instead of cancel culture,to better understand this practice from North America.
- Theelectromobility, instead of e-mobility, because an electric revolution of individual and collective transport is being prepared.
- The uncorrected fault, instead of zero-day vulnerability: our software and computer systems are far from infallible...
- The hate and the hateful, instead of hate,who are always ready to blow on the embers in social networks.
- Thehydrogen from renewable sources, instead of green hydrogen: one of the 33 fundamental terms of hydrogen, essential for a successful energy transition.
- The psychosocial manipulation, instead of social engineering, because we may one day be the victim of manipulation to extort data or money.
- The public-private comings and goings, instead of revolving door, to talk about executives who commute between high administration and big business without ever being dizzy...
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