LANGUAGE WATCH : Invaders Get the OK

Neither the United States nor Britain has an equivalent to the Academie Francaise, whose mandate is to safeguard the purity of French, and no doubt that’s just as well. The sole function of the Academie, which dates from about 1634, is to compile a French dictionary. In the last 3 1/2 centuries it has produced eight, or an average of one about every 45 years. That puts the Academie well behind schedule in getting out its next edition. The most recent dictionary dates from 1935, and work on the ninth edition has so far reached only the letter “g.” The 40 members of the Academie are known as the Immortals. That is intended to be a tribute to their literary distinction, but some might also take it to refer to the pace of their lexicographic efforts. They do tend to plod.

The French are enormously proud and protective of their language, and for some time it has been government policy to discourage borrowings from English--what they call franglais--and, indeed, to try to purge the language of those that have crept in. So it’s big news that among the latest proposed additions to the next dictionary are a number of English words for which the academicians could find no suitable French equivalent. These include the specifically American English words “gangster” and “full,” as in a full house in poker. Of course, these are not words necessarily representative of the best in American culture. But at least their indispensability has been granted Olympian sanction. Alors, who knows what wild and crazy things the Immortals might do when they take on the letter “h”?