At every turning point in history, its vocabulary.
The events of our time inevitably color the French language with new words, which fit into our everyday language.
The health crisis of the beginning of the century is no exception.
Certain terms that we used shortly before are now part of our conversations: "virus, mask, teleworking, confinement" ... The latter was even voted word of the year by the Collins dictionary.
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Anglicisms are, unfortunately, not to be outdone: we can no longer count the number of times the words “face-to-face” and “distance” have been used this year.
Let us recall in the preamble that these two terms have nothing to do with French!
“Face-to-face” was awkwardly constructed from the English word
“presential”
, to mean to be “physically present”.
The word “distance” appeared in parallel to designate distance work or education.
The Académie française emphasizes that the phrase “distance education” entered our language more than eighty years ago, with the creation of the National Center for Distance Learning (CNED).
There is therefore no need to transform English words to adapt them to French.
It will be fashionable, and above all fairer, to say: "I am working remotely", or "I work in the presence" rather than
face-to-face.