fab je t'assure que Bordeaux est tout sauf méditerranéenne, à commencer par le climat et l'ambiance. Ceci dit, c'est une ville méridionale : elle fait partie du Midi atlantique.
il est certain que Bordeaux n'est pas une ville méditerranéenne au sens strict du terme, mais, comme tu l'as justement noté, il s'agit d'une ville méridionale. Les qualificatifs de "méridional" et "méditerranéen" se recoupent en grande partie - et, en tout cas partagent un certain nombre de points communs (en tout cas concernant la France).
Je ne considère pas personnellement Bordeaux comme une ville méditerranéenne au sens strict - mais je voulais just noter, qu'au sens large, certains endroits non situés dans des lieux proches de la méditerranée partagent un certain nombre de points communs avec d'autres qui y sont - et qu'il n'existe pas de critère unique pour définir ce qui est "méditerranéen". C'est le cas aussi du portugal, qui à mon sens, a toute sa place parmis les pays méditerranéens bien qu'il n'en soit pas au sens strict.
Quote:
I have no trouble at all dividing up my own country into disparate portions, some of which have little to do with others far away
yes, but your country is HUGE ! France has just the size of Texas.
we don't have portions really "far away" to others.
Quote:
Even the fact that there are areas of overlap or gradation from one region to another don't nullify the disparity between the people at different ends of the continuum
Yes, of course. I just wanted to correct the conception that some foreigner seem to have of France - which seem to be seen as by some as a country made of two complelty different culture, one supposed to be northern European, the other souther European.
My idea is that a northern french, even if not situated along the mediterranean still is much closer to a southern French than to a south german or for exemple. our country is not divided in two. the mediterranean elements from the south have prnetrate and have penetrated northern France since at least 2000 years.
Last edited by fab on Thu Jun 14, 2007 10:40 pm; edited 1 time in total
Fab, just a grammatical point that I thought you might be interested in: in English, one doesn't say 'a French'; one has to say 'a French person' (or 'a French man' or 'a French woman').
Basically, if the name of the nationality in English ends in '-an', you don't need to say 'person' after it, for example 'a German', 'an Italian', 'an American', 'a Canadian', 'an Australian', 'an Argentinean' etc. However, for others, you have to say 'a French person', 'an English person', 'a Dutch person', 'a Portuguese person' etc. And then there are some irregulars, such as 'a New Zealander'.
Additionally, you'll notice that some people, especially Porthos, say things like 'a Frenchman', 'an Englishman', 'a Dutchman' etc. To me, that usage seems very old-fashioned and politically incorrect, so I don't recommend it. But perhaps it's still in common use in California, I don't know.
Additionally, you'll notice that some people, especially Porthos, say things like 'a Frenchman', 'an Englishman', 'a Dutchman' etc. To me, that usage seems very old-fashioned and politically incorrect, so I don't recommend it. But perhaps it's still in common use in California, I don't know.
It's not old-fashioned or politically incorrect Fab. Maybe if you're a paranoid, overly pc pansy, but I've never seen it as such. Maybe in England this is so, but at least not in American English.
Ben, what would be preferable in England to "Frenchman"? If you're talking exclusively about a male, would you still refer to that person as being a "French person"? Or if you're speaking of a French army division consisting entirely of males, would you still refer to them as "French people" instead of "Frenchmen"? That would sound silly in my opinion.
"There's 5,000 [/i]Frenchmen[/i] 10 km from here, poised to attack."
Ben, what would be preferable in England to "Frenchman"? If you're talking exclusively about a male, would you still refer to that person as being a "French person"?
'French man' (which is pronounced differently from 'Frenchman') if we specifically want to emphasise that it's a man. But if the gender is unimportant or unknown, then 'French person' would be more common.
Porthos wrote:
Or if you're speaking of a French army division consisting entirely of males, would you still refer to them as "French people" instead of "Frenchmen"? That would sound silly in my opinion.
I'd probably be more likely to say 'French soldiers' in this case. But if I specifically wanted to emphasise that they were all men, then I'd probably say 'French men'.
Porthos wrote:
"There's 5,000 [/i]Frenchmen[/i] 10 km from here, poised to attack."
Or...
"There's 5,000 French [i]persons[i] 10 km from here poised to attack."
Never 'persons', although 'people' would be fine. But it would be more common here to say 'French soldiers' in this case anyway.
Essentially, people here are encouraged to use language which is as gender-neutral as possible when it isn't necessary to emphasise the gender of the people involved.
Essentially, people here are encouraged to use language which is as gender-neutral as possible when it isn't necessary to emphasise the gender of the people involved.
It's the same here to some extent. I think the best example might be lärarinna which is the female form of "teacher". Nowadays they're called lärare like their male colleagues.
When you get to college, Porth, they'll shove that gender-neutral crap down your throat, too. Personally, I think it's silly to go into contortions to find a gender-neutral term, but to each their own. I sympathize with the sentiment behind it and I'm as much a feminist as the next grrl, but honestly, it's just an idiosyncracy of the language. I don't take it literally or sweat the "implied inequality" we're all supposed to be so aghast about. These things were built into the language long ago. And people do it without knowing it all the time -- after all, the possessive -'s is nothing but a contraction for "his" -- the old way of showing possession would have been to say "John his horse", which later morphed into "John's horse". I wouldn't be surprised to find that there was originally a feminine counterpart to that construction -- "Helga her house" -- it probably fell by the wayside for no better reason than it's a lot harder to add an R onto the end of many words than it is to add an S.
But some people feel strongly about this subject, and if they are also the people grading your midterms, you will learn to bow down. _________________ An apple a day....
Just to confuse you more, though, fab, while in the singular you have to say "Englishman" or "Frenchwoman" or "Chinese person", collectively you can still say "the English", "the French", "the Chinese", "the Portuguese" and it would be every bit as grammatically correct (and understood to be plural) as saying "the French people" or "the Spanish people". You would never try to add an S like you would to "Americans", "Koreans", or "Greeks".
An author I was reading said there is a similar trick in French that he used all the time -- since he could never get the hang of which nouns were feminine and which were masculine and was forever messing up the appropriate articles to use with them, he simply avoided the whole problem by only referring to things inthe plural -- where the articles are a lot simpler. But that meant that he had to buy at least two of everything.... _________________ An apple a day....
Essentially, people here are encouraged to use language which is as gender-neutral as possible when it isn't necessary to emphasise the gender of the people involved.
It's the same here to some extent. I think the best example might be lärarinna which is the female form of "teacher". Nowadays they're called lärare like their male colleagues.
Funny. So basically it's like Germanophones used <die Lehre> = *{female teacher} as the feminine counterpart for <der Lehrer> = {male teacher} although 1] <die Lehrerin> is {female teacher} & 2] <die Lehre> = {apprenticeship, doctrine, tenet, theory, teaching etc}...
Funnier : in French <le professeur>, a grammatical masculine, serves as a semantical weak neuter (it is used for both males & females). Yet they lately forged <la professeure>, a grammatical & semantical feminine...
Uriel wrote:
(...) after all, the possessive -'s is nothing but a contraction for "his" -- the old way of showing possession would have been to say "John his horse", which later morphed into "John's horse". I wouldn't be surprised to find that there was originally a feminine counterpart to that construction -- "Helga her house" -- it probably fell by the wayside for no better reason than it's a lot harder to add an R onto the end of many words than it is to add an S.
Actually John's horse is identical to Johanns Pferd. As is Ann's horse to Annas Pferd. The <s> is a Saxon genitive, which is a remnant of Old-English singular genitives in strong declensions for grammatical masculine & neuter. The question whether such specific genitive endings could at all be connected with his(genitive singular for grammatically masculine & neutral possessive pronouns in Old English) is probably best answered by the fact that Althochdeutsch equivalents are sin, where <s> isn't final and perhaps unlikely to be stuck to the thing possessed preceding.
Uriel wrote:
Just to confuse you more, though, fab, while in the singular you have to say "Englishman" or "Frenchwoman" or "Chinese person", collectively you can still say "the English", "the French", "the Chinese", "the Portuguese" and it would be every bit as grammatically correct (and understood to be plural) as saying "the French people" or "the Spanish people". You would never try to add an S like you would to "Americans", "Koreans", or "Greeks".
C'est un des pièges de la grammaire anglaise qu'Uriel te décrit, fab. Pour les noms de peuples dépourvus de suffixes tels que <an> ou <ard> (etc), le pluriel est un adjectif substantivé, donc invariable. Ça concerne, en particulier, tous les noms de peuples suffixés en <ese>. Ça fonctionne aussi avec certains collectifs d'animés humains : <the rich>, <the poor> etc. En fait, An <the riches> c'est Fr <la richesse> ou Fr <les richesses>.
When you get to college, Porth, they'll shove that gender-neutral crap down your throat, too. Personally, I think it's silly to go into contortions to find a gender-neutral term, but to each their own. I sympathize with the sentiment behind it and I'm as much a feminist as the next grrl, but honestly, it's just an idiosyncracy of the language. I don't take it literally or sweat the "implied inequality" we're all supposed to be so aghast about. These things were built into the language long ago. And people do it without knowing it all the time -- after all, the possessive -'s is nothing but a contraction for "his" -- the old way of showing possession would have been to say "John his horse", which later morphed into "John's horse". I wouldn't be surprised to find that there was originally a feminine counterpart to that construction -- "Helga her house" -- it probably fell by the wayside for no better reason than it's a lot harder to add an R onto the end of many words than it is to add an S.
But some people feel strongly about this subject, and if they are also the people grading your midterms, you will learn to bow down.
No! I'll never bow down to all that pc crap! I'll just stick it to the man like I always do!
I noticed something different in writing recently. A lot of authors are opting to use "her/she" instead of the more traditional "him/he" when speaking of a hypothetical non-gender specific person, and I know they're doing it in a pc fashion, as a way of counter-acting the inherent bias in traditional language which favors the masculine forms of things.
Example:
When you take the average person to a baseball game, she is most likely going to be impressed by the smells
Subconsciously, we associate certain traits or occupations with one sex or the other, as in nursing=female, nurturing=female, football player=male, hunter=male, investment banker = male, and that's usually reflected in speech and in writing when speaking of a hypothetical person, so that depending upon the context, we will create a feminine person or a masculine person based on the pronoun, according to what makes most sense for that given situation. But it's been taken so far by the pc pansy crowd that they'll try to use the feminine form in just about every situation, even though the masculine form would actually be more appropriate. _________________ Operation Northwoods - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
Favorite languages = English/Spanish
Followed by Italian/French/Dutch
I noticed something different in writing recently. A lot of authors are opting to use "her/she" instead of the more traditional "him/he" when speaking of a hypothetical non-gender specific person, and I know they're doing it in a pc fashion, as a way of counter-acting the inherent bias in traditional language which favors the masculine forms of things.
Example:
When you take the average person to a baseball game, she is most likely going to be impressed by the smells
I would usually write 'they' in that situation. Or sometimes 's/he'.
Porthos wrote:
But it's been taken so far by the pc pansy crowd that they'll try to use the feminine form in just about every situation, even though the masculine form would actually be more appropriate.
Why would the masculine form be 'more appropriate'? Both men and women can go to watch a baseball match.
LOL!! Where I live, there are some female hunters Few, of course, but they exist. There are hunting clubs, for shooting boars and other animals or targets. I'd like to learn to shoot targets like a thing on a wall, but *never* to shoot animals. In the place where the forest begin, there's a sign to inform when the hunting hours will be.Ther's a picture on it, of a male hunter, so this sign will agree with Porthos
As Pauline mentioned, there are female hunters. I would have absolutely no reason to assume that a hunter must be male. Actually, I can quite easily imagine posh women on horses going fox hunting — before fox hunting was banned in this country, at least.
Quote:
When a typical hunter reaches the hunting grounds, her natural reaction is to breathe in the environment, and become one with nature.
I'd say:
When a typical hunter reaches the hunting grounds, their natural reaction is to breathe in the environment, and become at one with nature.
I wouldn't say 'him' or 'her' in that situation, because the gender of the hunter has not been mentioned.
Location: El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles del Río de Porciúncula
Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2007 7:48 pm Post subject:
How come you guys can't stay on topic?
greg in noord-frankrijk wrote:
Funny. So basically it's like Germanophones used <die Lehre> = *{female teacher} as the feminine counterpart for <der Lehrer> = {male teacher} although 1] <die Lehrerin> is {female teacher} & 2] <die Lehre> = {apprenticeship, doctrine, tenet, theory, teaching etc}...
Funnier : in French <le professeur>, a grammatical masculine, serves as a semantical weak neuter (it is used for both males & females). Yet they lately forged <la professeure>, a grammatical & semantical feminine...
I read an article somewhere, written prior to the elections in France, that mentioned how France is (was) in a quandary over how to address Mme. Royal should she be elected president: Madame, la présidente or Madame, le président. One would think the former since she's female, but the Académie française's position was that when referring to the function, the masculine form should always be used. But I don't understand the logic behind this. Why should the function be strictly masculine?
There was a reason why French was once lauded as a language of precision and clarity totally befitting its status as an international language of diplomacy. I was taught that la présidente would be the president's wife.
I do not purport to speak on behalf of the Académie Francaise, but I would well imagine the reason why: the institution la présidence is feminine as it is so there is nothing misogynistic about specifying that the function would be grammatically male.
Ditto for le juge and la justice.
As for using the cumbersome 'they' or the inelegant and ugly 'his or her' to refer to any third person, I think such sentence constructions have a role to play for people who are seriously neurotic and who insist otherwise on being little fascist language policemen.
As for there also being female hunters, this is a moot point. There are so few of them everywhere. Most of them would run out of breath chasing after wild boars and it is a fact. I do not hold the female sex in contempt here, but I simply cannot take female hunters too seriously unless she is as physically strong and able-bodied as a male hunter.
There are also female sportswomen around. Why don't the fascist language policemen here create a term that lauds sportswomanship? _________________ Hillary Clinton is an acquired taste which I have clearly yet to acquire.
What about huntresses ? Then your typical hunter would definitely not be your typical huntress...
Elaine wrote:
I read an article somewhere, written prior to the elections in France, that mentioned how France is (was) in a quandary over how to address Mme. Royal should she be elected president: Madame, la présidente or Madame, le président. One would think the former since she's female, but the Académie française's position was that when referring to the function, the masculine form should always be used. But I don't understand the logic behind this. Why should the function be strictly masculine?
The Académie is right... and twice wrong !
Normally président is a function and the person holding that function. When you say M. le Président or Mme le Président, you're referring to the function even if you're obviously addressing (or mentioning) the person in charge. In both cases, <le Président> is a grammatical (formal, morphological etc) masculine ***AND*** a semantic weak neuter.
A noun may be said a weak neuter, semantically, as long as it is no strong neuter (table, épée, avion, maison, pierre, Italie, soleil, papier, océan → inanimates, hence non-sexed) and provided it is neither a semantic masculine (garçon, grand-père, tortue mâle → animates of male sex) nor a semantic feminine (sœur, lionne, tigresse, scorpion femelle → animates of female sex).
Now the Académie is wrong in the sense they call that semantic weak neuter a masculine (thus omitting it is just a grammatical masculine), and even a « non-marked gender » [sic] — and that's only more idiotic to the extent both président & présidente are marked : <Ø> for the former, <e> for the latter.
The Académie is also wrong (at least some of the near-dead Immortels peopling that venerable institution) because they will simply reject the alternative usage, which emphasises the person holding the function rather than the function itself. In this case it's M. le Président & Mme la Présidente. Simple as that.
In short :
<(Mme) le Président> → grammatical masculine & semantical feminine
<(M.) le Président> → grammatical masculine & semantical masculine
<(M. ou Mme) le Président> → grammatical masculine & semantical weak neuter (the actual sex of the holder is unknown)
<le Président> → either [1] grammatical masculine & semantical weak neuter (the actual sex of the holder is unknown), or [2] grammatical masculine & semantical feminine (the actual sex of the holder is known & female), or [3] grammatical masculine & semantical masculine (the actual sex of the holder is known & male)
<la Présidente> → grammatical feminine & semantical feminine (the actual sex of the holder is necessarily known and necessarily female)
No! I'll never bow down to all that pc crap! I'll just stick it to the man like I always do!
You mean, stick it to the person.
loic wrote:
As for using the cumbersome 'they' or the inelegant and ugly 'his or her' to refer to any third person, I think such sentence constructions have a role to play for people who are seriously neurotic and who insist otherwise on being little fascist language policemen.
I agree that "his or her" sounds awkward and contrived, but I think you're off the mark on singular "they". For the people that use it, like me and most people I know, it comes naturally, and it would simply sound stilted to use "he" for instances of indefinite gender. Trust me, it's not motivated by ideology. Singular "they" is a naturally evolved form - and it's been used for centuries by such authors as Shakespeare - so I think it's wrong to denigrate its users in such a way.
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Few, of course, but they exist. There are hunting clubs, for shooting boars and other animals or targets. I'd like to learn to shoot targets like a thing on a wall, but *never* to shoot animals. In the place where the forest begin, there's a sign to inform when the hunting hours will be.Ther's a picture on it, of a male hunter, so this sign will agree with Porthos