While I was tinkering with the previous post I wrote ‘United States’ in Spanish: Estados Unidos.
Which would be correctly abbreviated to ‘EU’.
And ‘EU’ in English means something completely different to the United States.
Well, it amused me…
B.
6 thoughts on “International lingua franca”
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Oh, it is confusing in French too. By EU some people mean “États-Unis” (even though the correct spelling should be ÉU and not EU), and some mean “European Union”, which they can’t be bothered to call UE (Union Européenne) because English is suuuuuch a cool language.
I’ve once been told in the USA that the European currency was the Euro Dollar. Maybe that’s the key
Hi Citronella and froggywoogie.
One of the things I like about the French language is the way English/American acronyms are often reversed (NATO/OTAN). 🙂
But we’ve kept RADAR this way lol
Ah, you can’t fool me froggywoogie: RADAR backwards is, umm, RADAR.
But I can help with one thing: the term ‘Eurodollar’ is a description that applies to a US Dollar that can be held and traded outside the country of origin on the world’s financial markets.
I like it too, Brennig. When I don’t know which acronym is used in English, I just reverse the order…
(Well and sometimes it doesn’t work.)