Non-Bons Mots in France

Despite a 1973 decree aimed at eliminating foreign--meaning American--words from la belle langue, the French have continued merrily to use franglais, that pervasive and convenient coupling of the French and English languages.

They cheer le cowboy in le western, eat le snack (pronounced znag) or le sandwich in le living room or le drugstore, and sip un cocktail or un Scotch sur les rocks at le party au le weekend. Now, in a new effort to knockouter "the most obvious instances of language degradation and to protect the citizen from possible harm," a new law, Number 75-1349, forbids the use of foreign words in advertising, business contracts, TV and radio programs and the like.

The French thus are supposed to devise substitutes for the ubiquitous anglicisms that comprise a good part of their everyday vocabulary: such non-bons mots as bestseller, sexy, blue jeans, bowling, gadget, checkup, checkout, jumbo jet, baby sitter, nonstop, dead heat (pronounced did it), hot dog, hijack, racket, zoom, jukebox, call girl, marketing, merchandising and leasing. Evidemment, the government will need un computer --preferred usage: ordinateur--to track down the offending business man, a designation that is not precisely conveyed by its closest French equivalent, l'homme d'affaires, and even less by la femme d'affaires, a term that could apply to a woman who does not know the bottom line from le topless.

Like Chauvin. By way of retaliation, U.S. presidential hopefuls may be tempted to emulate France's Nicolas Chauvin and cry a pox on all alien coinages. Admittedly many of these words and phrases are silly, frilly, misused and mispronounced by Yanks; they range, without any particular elan or eclat, from soupc,on and soupe du jour to dej`a vu and a la almost anything. However, there are hundreds of French words imbedded in the English language for which there are no substitutes--even the politician may find it hard to oppose the tongue that makes him elite and his wife chic, his views avantgarde, his opponent naive. Who would want to unscramble omelette, anglicize souffle or advertise crepes suzette as pancakes Suzy? A tete a tete is not eyeball to eyeball; savoir-faire is considerably more than know-how. And what would Henry Kissinger do without detente?

Clearly, attempts to "purify" the language on either side of the Atlantic are doomed to failure--as even Valery Giscard d'Estaing must know in his heart of hearts. A few days after signing the linguistic law, France's President was chatting to a group of journalists at the Elysee Palace. "Ce que je vais dire," he warned, "est off the record."

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