Philobiblon

Well today I learnt a new French word, that for blog. It is “blog”. I think the academie is fighting a losing battle. That from an article in Le Monde about music blogs, Avec les blogs, les mélomanes tissent leur toile . The headline seems a bit harsh, and a bit odd, “weaving their canvases”, but maybe that’s just the cyber vernacular in France.

Yes there are lots of links in there, many in English if it matters, but I haven’t followed them up: music just sounds like noise to me. Yes, I know I’m a philistine.

I’ve noticed other intrusions, particularly the unlovely “fixeur”, an English noun with a French ending, referring to a journalist’s all-around helper, “c’est a dire ‘arranger'”. (No I’m not game to put French quote marks in there, since they are like HTML brackets and can’t imagine what Blogger would make of that.)

There was also a big piece in Sunday’s Le Monde about how MSN Messenger is sweeping France, “entirely changing social life”. Well looking at the Rue de Abbesses tonight it certainly doesn’t seem like it.

But what I really want to know is: why do you have to use the shift key to get a full stop …… not to mention the question of why Q is in the easiest spot on the keyboard to hit, the location of the English keyboard A?