It must be the French...

While trying to post about a news item French radio stumbles over podcasting, Firefox just shut down on me. Not so hot, for first thing in the morning, but there we have it. I probably need to update my browser with the new 2.0 version (which is remarkably similar to the 1.5 version I'm using, but begs updating, just 'cause I can).

So, here's the bit, sans BlogThis:

French radio presenters have a problem with podcasting -- but it's nothing to do with technology, bandwidth or copyright.

No, the problem they have is with the word itself. Podcasting, you see, isn't French.

Defending the language from foreign invasion is something of a cause célébre in France, it has to be said, but the disdain for podcasting is not about national pride: it's about being understood. If listeners can't tell what they're being offered, they're unlikely to head for the station's Web site to subscribe to new feeds.

Although the arrival of podcasting in the French language is something of a fait accompli, that didn't stop the French government from passing a decree in March to encourage the use of an alternative term: "la diffusion pour baladeur." Baladeur is French for portable music player, and spares the French from erroneously referring to any such device as an "iPod" or "Walkman," regardless of the actual brand, as native English speakers tend to do.

Something similar happened with the term "e-mail", a while back. I believe the edict was to call e-mails "Couriere". Looking around online, it appears that French usage is mixed -- lots of folks have it in their e-mail (oh, sorry! couriere) addresses, a-la couriere@whatever.com. The brief brouhaha didn't merit more than a short news cycle, and this instance of official declaration about the use of the term "podcasting" may have about the same amount of impact on the world at large... negligible.

It's interesting to note how local cultures interact with global standards -- on a governmental level, in the case of the French. This is, to me, clearly a stake in the ground for French identity. It's not a huge stake, but it's a stake, nonetheless. It's a case of a local entity with its own "flavor" stepping up and saying, "This is who we are, and this is how we talk about ourselves," rather than just blandly accepting the branding from Apple or MSFT or whoever else is passing along their version of enhancements to everyday life.

On the surface, it might not look like there's really that much significance to this almost-token gesture, but to me it's part of an ongoing saga of local cultures trying to exert their autonomy in the face of encroaching global standards. The French have proved quite good at this, I think, and they make a concerted effort to do so -- officially, formally, with a public announcement.

Compare this approach with the brouhaha around the plagiarism scandals that have rocked the literary world in the past year. James Frey, Kaavya Viswanathan, Ian McEwan, and now Mel Gibson (! he just can't seem to stay out of trouble...), and you see sharply contrasting approaches. With the French, they draw a line and then issue a decree, and it's done. With the informally organized, blogosphere-driven literary/artistic world, it's much more messy. But it's also more democratic, with the standards being defined by the people "down below", rather than official authorities who use the occasion to shore up their power, rather than disperse it. With the blogosphere and the artistic/musical/literary world, standards are explored and enforced en masse. Which can be a helpful thing. Or a hurtful thing.

It's always interesting to see where folks are going with these sorts of things, both from the top and from the bottom.