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The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

nytimes.com

181–190 of 203 posts

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I don't have the same level of cooking, I guess; I've never used any of those terms.

Well, I did work in a professional kitchen for about four years. But cooking shows, YouTube videos, and basic cookbooks in America use those terms. I found definitions for mirepoix and chiffonade in Better Homes & Gardening cookbook, which is as white-bread American as it comes (along with many, many other French words). My point was that the culture that produces an innovation ends up defining the terminology becaus…

Very good point, thank you.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday, I ran into trouble while searching for noise cancelling headphones because the site where I was searching had it spelled “canceling” for some of the products and the search wasn’t fuzzy enough to show both. See also: “Inflammable means flammable? What a country!”

> Just yesterday, I ran into trouble while searching for noise cancelling headphones because the site where I was searching had it spelled “canceling” for some of the products and the search wasn’t fuzzy enough to show both. 'Canceling'? That looks like a spelling mistake :-)

Both versions are considered correct. Perhaps by different people....

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#183
post #4
post #2

The Académie earlier this month "voted by an overwhelming majority to approve a report compiled by three of its five female members that recommended ending its centuries-old official ban on feminizing the names of professions and trades."

It’s interesting they’re taking the German route rather than the English route which is to erode most feminine gendered trade words: waitress, stewardess, actress, governess, baxter, etc. likewise the male equivalent have become neutral so actor, governor, baker, waiter, etc don’t only apply to men.

French (and German) is a gendered language: we say «une»/«un» and «la»/«le». And we don't even have a way to opt-out the gender (German does).

In the 18th and 19th centuries, L'Académie Française tried to get rid of the feminine version or many existing names, and promote the idea of the masculine as «gender-neutral». The most (in)famous example is the masculine auteur (the French for “author”) replacing autrice for both sex. But this unification around the male version always felt artificial and somewhat offensive for women, because of the gendered articles.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#184
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting they’re taking the German route rather than the English route which is to erode most feminine gendered trade words: waitress, stewardess, actress, governess, baxter, etc. likewise the male equivalent have become neutral so actor, governor, baker, waiter, etc don’t only apply to men.

French (and German) is a gendered language: we say «une»/«un» and «la»/«le». And we don't even have a way to opt-out the gender (German does). In the 18th and 19th centuries, L'Académie Française tried to get rid of the feminine version or many existing names, and promote the idea of the masculine as «gender-neutral». The most (in)famous example is the masculine auteur (the French for “author”) replacing autrice for…

I think that approach might be politically easier to accept if the plan had been to drop the masculine version for half the nouns, and the feminine one for the other half.

But it's also hard to imagine the members of an old men's club voluntarily deciding that they should henceforth be known as autrices instead of auters. Doubly so 200 years ago.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#185
post #4
post #2

The Académie earlier this month "voted by an overwhelming majority to approve a report compiled by three of its five female members that recommended ending its centuries-old official ban on feminizing the names of professions and trades."

It’s interesting they’re taking the German route rather than the English route which is to erode most feminine gendered trade words: waitress, stewardess, actress, governess, baxter, etc. likewise the male equivalent have become neutral so actor, governor, baker, waiter, etc don’t only apply to men.

> waitress, stewardess, actress, governess, baxter

I use all of those other than baxter! Seems only polite; I'd be offended were I an actress and others called me an actor.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#186
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think English speakers just find it a bit strange because our own language is such a mess. In fact we don't even agree on how to spell basic words (maybe due to a deliberate political act by Noah Webster? not sure), and there is zero chance of international standardisation at this point, so we can't even imagine an official body that does this. Perhaps that's why some people seem to interpret it as "authoritarian".…

But the Dutch have it as well and no one goes on and on about it.

Many native English speakers have a certain obsession with France and the French language that doesn't happen with other counties and their languages. It's really strange. For example, in the US, speaking French is considered a particular accomplishment and a sign of good breeding, much more so than with any other second language.

I'm not sure what it's about. Maybe a holdover from French being the language of the English aristocracy during the middle ages?

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday, I ran into trouble while searching for noise cancelling headphones because the site where I was searching had it spelled “canceling” for some of the products and the search wasn’t fuzzy enough to show both. See also: “Inflammable means flammable? What a country!”

> Just yesterday, I ran into trouble while searching for noise cancelling headphones because the site where I was searching had it spelled “canceling” for some of the products and the search wasn’t fuzzy enough to show both. 'Canceling'? That looks like a spelling mistake :-)

The Cambridge Dictionary lists it as "-ll- or US usually -l-". Both are considered correct.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cancel

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#188
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t explained what’s actually wrong with their argument. Language is a human cultural phenomenon, it’s not math or programming. Who are you to say whether it’s right or wrong? There is a certain variety of English that a certain social class of people have decided is “standard”, but why does that make it objectively correct?

It's so self evident that I don't know where to begin... Language has rules (They were taught to us in school). They might change over time but they still exist. I'm sure that many "could of"s have been made official over the eons in all languages, (thanks to general ignorance/incompetence/refusal to learn) but that doesn't mean we should respect "couldofers" (see? I made up a word, I'm not that rigid) as if they're…

Yes, you were taught a set of language rules in school. By what objective standard are those rules correct? "Because I learned them in school" isn't a good answer.

I also learned in school that it's necessary to raise one's hand before speaking, to ask an authority figure's permission before using the bathroom, and to write math proofs in a two-column format. The point is that plenty of things you learn in school are just social conventions that are useful in certain situations, not reflections of any objective reality.

I'm not arguing against the existence of a language standard -- I'm arguing against its validity.

As for your intentional misspellings, that is a strawman -- nobody actually writes or talks like that, so you're actually deviating from the cultural phenomenon, there. If people did actually commonly write "iz" for "is", and "know" for "no" (and the rest of your examples), then that sentence would take no effort to understand, and yes, I'd be fine with it.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#189
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You haven’t explained what’s actually wrong with their argument. Language is a human cultural phenomenon, it’s not math or programming. Who are you to say whether it’s right or wrong? There is a certain variety of English that a certain social class of people have decided is “standard”, but why does that make it objectively correct?

It's so self evident that I don't know where to begin... Language has rules (They were taught to us in school). They might change over time but they still exist. I'm sure that many "could of"s have been made official over the eons in all languages, (thanks to general ignorance/incompetence/refusal to learn) but that doesn't mean we should respect "couldofers" (see? I made up a word, I'm not that rigid) as if they're…

> Language has rules (They were taught to us in school). They might change over time but they still exist.

Those rules are discovered, not handed down from authorities, and the rules you were taught in school are largely not the real rules English speakers abide by. The real rules are learned the way every native language is learned: Through imitation and conversation with other native speakers, the caretakers and the peers.

> Iz their know point at witch "human caltoural fenonemon" stops and blatant misuse starts? Would you not draw the line somewhere?

First, we're talking about language, not orthography. If you want to see some bizarre orthography, read Chaucer. Or Shakespeare. Or Lewis and Clark, who managed to spell "mosquito" multiple ways on the same page, in full view of each other.

Second, native speakers do make mistakes, but if a "mistake" is persistent enough to bother you, well, it probably isn't a mistake, but a dialectical feature, and saying a dialect is wrong or inferior is contrary to the science of linguistics. You wouldn't claim to have a new rule for electrons and then rant about how the electrons refuse to follow it because they're uncultured and uneducated.

And saying a dialect is "wrong" is very often a proxy for saying some people are too poor or the wrong color to "speak right" in the mind of the complainer. Witness the idiocy spewed about African-American Vernacular English, commonly called "Ebonics" by the people who try to mark it as uneducated.

Re: The Guardians of the French Language Are Deadlocked

#190
post #69
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rather a slap in the face to non-binary and gender non-conforming people, though.

Superimposing an extremely recent political movement onto linguistic gender seems like the mother of all category errors.

Nonbinary people existing is a political movement now?

Then the existence of binary people is a political movement, too.

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