The wider definition of the écriture inclusive includes several writing changes. I believe the main one the Académie is warning against is the reintroduction of a ancient sign (the interpunct) to coin words representing both genders or singular/plural, e.g.: Les ...
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Antique expressions “tourmenteroit” and “à-peu-près”
Business Editors
Some recent knowledge I happened upon courtesy of @Gilles leads me to guess that tourmenteroit is an archaic conditional conjugation of tourmenter, and thus the opening words mean “Laffernas had promised the Minister that he would torment him if…” As ...
Understanding “Te confonde le Ciel de me parler ainsi !”
Associations EditorsI think it is a mild imprecation, just as when you would say in English of ages past, “Confound me”, “Confound the day you were born”, etc. It is unusual to find the inversion “subject/verb” and not to find “que” ...
“Je ne doute point d’apprendre”
Associations Editors“Je ne doute point” is another way of saying “je ne doute pas“. It is a negative, it is very formal and sounds old fashioned nowadays but might have been standard French is the 16th century.
Tense and mood of “comme si elles eussent essayé”
Associations EditorsI believe this is conditionnel passé II simply because it is not a “que” construct, and does not express a desire, wish, emotion, obligation, doubt or uncertainty. Using the imparfait in this case would be equivalent to using the conditionel ...
Proportion of Greek and Latin influences
Associations EditorsIt depends on how you count. If you count every word in a dictionary once, you will get a higher score for Greek words; a very infrequently used word will count as 1 just like a very frequently used word, ...
Conversion of “to look cool”
Associations EditorsTrying to look can be translated as Essayer d’avoir l’air. But for the second part, it depends of the context: “in foreign language”, does that mean you’re doing as if you could talk it, pretending to be fluent, or you ...
Please help me find this quote of Rousseau
Business EditorsIl semblerait que ce ne soit pas de Rousseau mais de Fénelon, Les aventures de Télémaque. To build upon @oldergod’s answer: Though the quote is often attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, it is always unsourced (not attached to a book). As ...
How are defunct spellings pronounced when read aloud?
Associations EditorsI’m no expert in old French so I can’t tell you if we should, but we’d definitely pronounce it as it is written, but following the pronunciation rules of modern French. So “déchiroit” would be pronounced as “déchiroit” and “entrez” ...
“Je m’en fais” when not referring to worry
Business Editors“Je m’en fais la répétition” here simply means “I repeat them”. “En“, standing for “the words”. The construction of the sentence is akward in French, as is in fact all that Catherine says in French in the play. Nobody would ...