After the “Texto/SMS” post of yesterday, many of you asked for more!

French abréviations are virtually partout (everywhere): In les journaux (newspapers), les magazines, les films (movies), les conversations quotidiennes (daily conversations), including les SMS (text messages), which are hands-down le medium de communiction favorit de ladite “Génération Y” (the favorite communication medium of the so-called “Y Generation”), who prefer to send “des textos” rather than passer un coup de fil (giving a phone call)…
Members of the “Génération Y“, stereotypically more “apathetic” (“a-what?”) than its “X” predecessor, portent mal leur nom (carries a misnomer—“a mis-what?”) Instead of asking “le pourquoi des choses” (the “whY of things”), they just shout back: “WhY not”!
As to the two preceding generations, “les Baby Boomers”and “la Génération X”, please refer to the post: “Foule Sentimentale”—Alain Souchon (Made in “MoZer RUSSIA”!)

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À vos marques! Prêts! Partez! (Ready! Steady! Go!)

* CEDEX:
We saw last time that the abbreviation BP in French stands for Po Box.
Still about the French poste, you need to know about le Cedex, which is an acronym for a special sevice called ” Courrier d’Entreprise à Distribution EXceptionnelle.” Many foreigners in France wonder what the CEDEX stands for: Is it like a code postal (zip code)?Non. In plain English, that would be “Mail of Companies with Exceptional Distribution”, meaning companies who usually receive a lot of letters per day, and therefore need to have a mailing priority with la Poste de France. In that sense, CEDEX is not unlike the American FedEx.

For example, if you are an actionnaire (shareholder) of la société “L’Oréal“, you may contact their headquarters by mail at the following address:

” 41, rue Martre – 92117 Clichy Cedex – France ”

* CGT:
The Americans have their AFL-CIO; the French are blessed with their CGT !

Thanks to the long-running tandem of trade unionCGT (la Confédération Générale deTravail) and a rather rigid French patronat (employers—See MEDEF), la grève du travail (work strike) has become somewhat of a passe-temps national (national pass-time) in France, at times paralyzing all economic activity for weeks…

A new “war front” for the CGT: The protection of the French language in French companies

This lady talks about her experience with a French company acquired by the American giant “General Electric“, which started, according to her account, to slowly “discreminate” against French employers on the basis of their English level. The legal power of “La Loi Toubon“, or “Toubon Law”, protecting the sovereign status of the French language in France, is (still) to be appreciated in such cases…

* Cie:
“Cie” is an abbreviation of “compagnie“, as in “et Cie.” (“and Co.”)
It doesn’t have to be used within the context of work. For example “Max et Cie.” (“Max & Co.”)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW4KUTfd02g
Dessin animé “Max et Cie.” (“Kimagure Orange Road” in Japanese—The Italians know it as “E quasi magia Johnny”)

Not to be confused with this other dessin animé “Max & Co.“:

French animé “Max & Co.“: Winner at the Festival International du Film d’Animation d’Annecy (The Annecy International Animation Film Festival)