French invent their own word for hashtag
According to the German IT news website Heise Online, the guardians of the French language known as the Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie have thought up (PDF, French) their own word for the English term “hashtag” which is widely used on the internet, particularly on the social media site Twitter. In the language of Voltaire the term for the keyword in tweets will in future be officially termed “mot-dièse”. “Dièse” is French for the hash symbol “#”, with which keywords in tweets are labelled, whilst “mot” is “word”, of course.
This attempt to preserve the purity of the French language was mainly met with ridicule on the internet. Heise’s report states that one Twitter user’s reaction after the publication of the new word in the French Official Journal on Wednesday, 23rd January was: “Apart from people of 70, who is seriously going to use this term?”
Will it catch on? Only time will tell; ultimately it’s those who use the language that determine its direction rather than any committee.
Update: since I first posted this article my French friend Julien has emailed to say: “Why the heck didn’t they choose the same word as Canada? “Mot-clic” makes way more sense…”. I cannot argue with that. 🙂