XPost: alt.usage.english   
   From: nospam@de-ster.demon.nl   
      
   Richard Tobin  wrote:   
      
   > In article ,   
   > Hibou   wrote:   
   >   
   > >> I spend all my life in computing contexts, and have never heard anyone   
   > >> say the word.  But then I had never heard anyone say "informatics"   
   > >> until our department was renamed to that.  Both sound like the sort of   
   > >> made-up English found in EU technical documents.   
   >   
   > >EU? 'Performant' is an unremarkable adjective in French:   
   >   
   > As is "informatique".  But we probably wouldn't have picked them up   
   > from the French directly.  The EU has in recent times been the route   
   > into English for many such words, as documents written in one language   
   > are translated into those of the other member countries.   
   >   
   > (English is of course still an official EU language.)   
      
   'Still'?   
   Officially all 24 languages of the EU are 'working languages',   
   but only three are commonly used. (English, French, and German)   
   The others are almost always translated into.   
      
   Of these English is the most common,   
   and also the most widely understood,   
      
   Jan   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)