UMM...EURR.....

War of Words over Euro (Geoff Meade, The Scotsman, October 12th, 2004)

What’’s in a name? Plenty, if it’’s the word for the currency of a dozen European Union nations.

That was why there was such controversy before EU leaders finally settled on the euro to replace legendary monetary terms including the mark, the franc and the guilder.

But now controversy is raging once again –– because some of the new EU countries say the word is too complicated to use in their own languages.

Special negotiations were being staged in Brussels between EU ambassadors to resolve a linguistic crisis which could overshadow the official signing of the new Constitutional Treaty in Rome in a fortnight.[...]

Latvia and Lithuania are saying they will not sign the new treaty if they are not allowed to spell euro how they want in EU documents drawn up in their languages, which are now among the EU’s 20 working languages.

The issue only affects spellings involving EU business, with the European Commission insisting that the word should be the same throughout the EU –– except in Greece where there is a different alphabet.

Two compromise proposals were on the table today to try to nip the problem in the bud –– either put inverted commas around the word “euro” wherever it appears in EU paperwork, or permit countries with a grammar problem to drop the “o” and use a different ending, leaving the “eur” intact.

The issue has raised sensitivities in some of the existing member states, with Germany and Italy insisting the newcomers cannot be allowed at this late stage to meddle with a word which symbolises the single currency.

One British spokesman confirmed that the issue of how the word euro was spelled in EU official documents published in Latvian or Lithuanian left the British Government totally unmoved.

Yes, that integrated European Defense Force that will counterbalance American hyperpower is just around the corner.