You Know Where It’s @, But Is It French?

Vin Crosbie on Web terminology
France last week officially gave a name to the “at” sign used worldwide in e-mail addresses. The French Ministry of Culture’s Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie, chartered to keep the French language free from foreign technology words, gave its imprimatur to “arobase” as the French word for the e-mail “@” symbol. What’s ironically unfrancophile about this is that the commission admits that arobase isn’t actually a word of French origin; “arobase” instead is derived from the Arabic “ar-arub,” meaning one quarter, which became an ancient Spanish and Portuguese unit of weight. Quel horreur! But then the committee five years ago failed to have the neologism “mel” adopted instead of “e-mail.”

Along with “arobase,” this French cultural committee this week also promulgated “anneau de site” for “webring,” “site” for Web “site” (an English word of French origin), and “portail” for “portal.” Surely, the French will next need a neologism for that culinary and Internet horror of American origin — spam.