The Useless French Language and Why We Learn It – Los Angeles Review of Books

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-useless-french-language-and-why-we-learn-it/

the Académie française’s tireless application of French labels to concepts originating elsewhere does speak to a troubling characteristic of modern French culture: not that it can’t produce sufficiently catchy French expressions (“Does anyone really think that French teenagers, per the academy’s diktat, are going to trade out sexting for texto pornographique?” asks Collins), but that so few concepts originate in France in the first place.