From time to time we read in the newspapers that the Académie Française is conducting yet another campaign against pollution of the French language by "Le Franglais." Surprisingly, the Académie was not one of the institutions set up by Napoleon - it was founded by François I, known to students of English history as the French king who met up with our own Henry VIII at a 'bash' on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. "Le Franglais" is when the French take a word from the English language and use it in its original form without bothering to translate it into a French equivalent. Le Franglais has been evolving for many years, the earliest example being "Le gentleman" (1698), "le magazine" (1776), "stopper" (meaning to stop) and "le pickpocket" (both 1792) and "le cake" (1795). Such a linguistic trend must have bothered the greatest anglophobe of all time, Napoleon Bonaparte, as much as it bothers today's academicians. Would the great man have been happy to have been called "un gentleman"? We shall never know! Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #39 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com