The 2004 dictionaries are out

Unlike the messy, unweeded garden that is the English language, the French language is much like the French park: it is carefully groomed by a team of caretakers, it remains decorative beyond practicality, and there are places where it is absolutely forbidden to go. It is therefore always a source of interest to see what new words and phrases are added each year to the two leading French dictionaries, the Robert and the Petit Larousse.

This year's crop of French neologisms, reflecting international preoccupations such as terrorism and the Internet, have the honor to be counted among the just 100,000 words that make up the French language. (There are more than 500,000 words in the English language.)

The Robert dictionary seems particularly concerned about recent world events. There are new French words related to biological weapons (anthrax, fi??vres h?©morragiques), chemical weapons (agent innervant - nerve gas), and other weapons of mass destruction (armes de destruction massive and bouclier antimissile, or missile defense shield).

Many of the words are recognizable from the war with Iraq, though it seems strange that "missile defense shield" is just now entering the lexicon. During the Reagan era, did the French simply call it Star Wars as well?

The French are also great borrowers of words, especially from English, as anyone who has visited France for even un week-end can tell. There is a government-backed effort to fight this, however, which has resulted in stringent laws against the number of non-French words that can appear on a billboard and the number of non-French songs that can be played on the radio.

These rules occasionally lead to absurdities like the menus at French McDonald's, where one can order un hamburger but not un cheeseburger. Customers desiring the latter must order un hamburger avec une tranche de fromage (a hamburger with a slice of cheese).

Still, foreign words will inevitably creep into any language that has contact with other cultures. France has therefore adopted a Quebecois word to describe junk e-mail, one that is perhaps even better than our word spam. The word is a combination of the French words for rotten (pourri) and e-mail (courriel): pourriel.

Another borrowed word, one that is particularly interesting for Anglophones, comes from the Antilles: djobeur. Pronounced phonetically, the word reveals its meaning: a person who takes on short, informal jobs: a day-jobber. Other new words in the Petit Larousse are direct translations from words familiar to Americans: ?©tat voyou (rouge state) and d?©linquance au col blanc (white-collar crime).

Of course, the inclusion of these words in the Petit Larousse and the Robert signifies their acceptance into the popular, not the official, lexicon. Not all of these words will pass the scrutiny of the true gatekeepers of the French language, the members of the French Academy (Acad?©mie Fran?§aise).

This illustrious group consists of 40 members of France's academic super-elite who are known as the "Immortals" (a nod to the motto on their seal, A l'immortalit?©, not to their egos). Founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635, the Academy originally served as a kind of aristocrats' club that benefited from a veneer of intellectualism.

"The Academy consists very largely of people of high breeding," explained one Louis XIV-era member. "But we have to allow for a certain number of men of letters-if only to get on with the Dictionary, for they show an assiduity in that respect which could not be expected of people like ourselves."

The Dictionary is indeed an important task of the now-legitimately intellectual Academy. They continue to show "assiduity" in their task of updating the official dictionary of the French language, though certainly not efficiency or rapidity: their pace would embarrass an escargot. In 2000, they came out with Volume II, from enzyme to mappemonde. Volume III is expected in 2005 and Volume IV in 2010, finishing the latest version of the dictionary that was begun 75 years earlier, in 1935. A task truly fit for an Immortal.