Laptop becomes 'mobiler rechner' in Germany

BERLIN, GERMANY: The Transport Ministry of Germany has launched a crackdown on English-style words in the German language, listing more than 100 banned terms, reports CNET.

German transport minister Peter Ramsauer informed his staff members to stop writing "der laptop" and call the device "mobiler rechner", which means "mobile computer."

Staff members also were advised to always call a data projector a "datenprojektor" and to stop describing it with the faux English term "beamer", which is common in Germany and the Netherlands, the report added.

Spokeswoman Sabine Mehwald confirmed that minister Peter Ramsauer, a conservative from the state of Bavaria, had appealed to his staff to preserve the German language, mainly protecting it from words of English origin.

Ramsauer said later that he was less concerned about ordinary nouns that have no Germanic equivalent than he was about pretentious terms such as "in-house meeting", which means the same as an everyday German expression, "hausinterne besprechung".