Further to our post last October about recent words in French, last week in France the "Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie" decreed that the words tablet, pad, slate should not be used to designate tactile tablets - what at this point are essentially Apple's iPhone and iPad - henceforth one must say ardoise (slate)!
Une ardoise is an "Ordinateur portable et ultraplat, qui se présente comme un écran tactile et qui permet notamment d’accéder à des contenus multimédias" (portable and ultra flat computer which presents itself as a tactile screen and which notably permits access to multimedia content).
It seems unlikely that the decree will be heeded much, although government employees including state owned TV and radio are expected to do so. The word ordinateur (often abbreviated as ordi) is one word the French language police manage to slip in place of "computer" back in the 1960s. Other alternatives include logiciel for software, informatique for IT and télécharger for download.
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