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Well... As a person who speaks and reads both english and french every every
day (often simultaneously :), I find that proscribing certain english words
because they are the same as certain french words is a way to end up with a
VERY small vocabulary. There are hundreds of words which occur with different
meanings in different languages.
If I see the word "chat", my comprehension of that word is shaped by the
language of the surrounding text; if the text is english I know we're talking
about talking, and if it's french then I know the discussion is about cats.
There's no confusion, or the many people who work in multilingual
environments all over the world would have collapsed in a twitching heap long
ago.
So. "émail" meaning "enamel" in french should have no impact on your choice
of term because unless you're switching languages every two words, there will
be no confusion (not to mention that french people are more aware of the
accents in words, and would immediately register "email" and "émail" as
different terms). Plus, email is "courriel" in french anyhow. :D
Translation-based word choice issues revolve more around terms with multiple
meanings in the base language, not across languages.
That said, I personally find "e-mail" woefully archaic, and use "email" by
preference.
-----Original Message-----
From: mlist -at- safenet-inc -dot- com
Subject: RE: "Email" vs. "E-mail"
Well... "email" is the French word for enamel.
I'm going to enamel you. What color would you like? :-)
And the finish: Gloss? Semi? Matte?
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