The pleasures of correction

This must be the only Times blog to generate heat over a spelling mistake  -- complete with a skirmish over a circumflex accent, no less. Thank you to everyone who has piled into this very French debate. It has exposed some national sensitivities and illustrated the point in my Waiters item about the way that culture colours perceptions about what is rude or not. 

First, as Frank Schnittger suggests, Sandrine must be rescued. I have no objection at all to being corrected and I thanked her in an e-mail after putting the e on the other side of the u in accueil. Despite my years in the word trade (and a degree in Eng lang and lit), I often muddle spelling in English as well as French. A blog exposes failings that are disguised in the newspaper thanks to the efforts of those unsung heroes, sub-editors. One of the healthy things about blogging is that it forces a lazy journalist to sharpen up spelling and punctuation. There is no-one to clean up after you. I shall write out accueil 100 times.

But Mark, Flocon and others have a point about the French devotion to precision, indeed perfection, in grammar and syntax. Kids in the English-speaking world have been allowed to get away with sloppiness in recent decades because teachers and examiners put the accent on creativity rather than the rules. Linguistic precision is part of the eternal Gallic quest for rigour. I have always supposed that it comes from the way that the language defines the identity of the centralised French nation. Ever since King François I [portrait above] decreed that standard French was the state tongue in 1539 -- when only a quarter of the population spoke it -- linguistic purity has been guarded by the Académie, kings and professeurs.  Jack Lang, the former Culture and Education Minister, put it in 1994: "En France, la langue est une affaire d'Etat". Teachers complain that standards are falling, but the schools are still extraordinarily demanding. My 12-year-old daughter is often crestfallen after scoring around zero in class essays simply because points come off for every wrong letter or missing accent. The language watchdogs are now tearing their hair out over the SMS/web chat language used by the kids and now making its way into school work. (C kool, my daughter says to that)

While on the sanctity of the language, have a look at www.languesdefranceenchansons.com a new, publicly-financed site that, unusually, projects other languages or variants of French. You click on the map to hear songs in Occitan, Catalan, Basque, Dutch, Breton, Alsatian etc -- languages spoken by the French that were long discouraged, even supressed, by the state. The site is a reminder of the diversity of languages in the Hexagon.   

And, in response to the questions about posting in French, please carry on. This blog is mainly about France, so most readers can handle it.  Même si nos lecteurs ne sont pas tous des francophones, je préfère que ceux qui ne se sentent pas à l'aise en anglais puissent s'exprimer dans leur langue maternelle.. (I remembered the circumflex).

--------------- Tuesday note: I'm off to work in Romania for the rest of the week, so please forgive any delay in the moderation of comments during my travel.     

Comments

[Hugues]

You remembered the circumflex but you missed a dot after "maternelle" (suspension dots come in threes).

I felt compelled to say that : what can we do, it's in our nature!

[Frank Schnittger]

Ah the tyranny of the grammarians! All living languages evolve all the time in response to changing technologies, social movements, fashions, artistic innovations and international influences. Grammars were developed to help standardise and teach languages, but like the petty bureaucrats who think that running a country is about filling forms out correctly, teachers sometimes think that they “own” a language and can dictate how it can be used. It becomes part of a political powerplay whereby the “educated” can look down on the “provincials” and all their quaint local ungrammatical idiomatic idiosyncrasies.

James Joyce long ago revolutionised how English could be written. Most creative writing involves unexpected juxtapositionings of words and the making up of new words to describe new experiences. Some subcultures develop their own patois – as in Rap music or the very stylised structure of scientific discourse. Rigour is of course important when very precise communications are required. For instance it would not be very reassuring if one surgeon said to another across the operating table – can you hand me that long scalpel thingamajig, I want to cut out that thing – whatsitsname - that comes out of his lower intestine.

On the other hand the attempt to impose linguistic uniformity can also be a form of cultural imperialism – or of an elite trying to impose its way of doing things on everybody else. It became de rigueur in Britain for the elite to be educated in classical Latin and Greek – if anything to ensure that they remained aloof from the general hoi polloi (another word made up by Dean Swift).

Irish nationalists have long argued that the Irish language is central to our national identity. Irish school children learn Irish intensively throughout their school career as it is a compulsory subject. This has created so much resentment that few end up speaking it fluently, and even fewer use it in everyday discourse. It is still “the first official language” and all teachers and civil servants must prove proficiency. But for many it is an embarrassing irrelevance which harks back to an imagined Celtic idyll that never was.

I have no doubt that the enforcement and standardisation of languages has played an important part in the development of the nation state and national/ethnic identities in times past. Language has also been an important tool of cultural resistance to imperial domination. I am equally convinced that the development of text and internet shorthands are part of the development of a globalised language and culture. Whist we must cherish what is uniquely ours, we must also recognise that the primary goal of all language is communication with others, and in an increasingly globalised world that means we must sometimes sacrifice linguistic purity in an attempt to reach across linguistic boundaries.

English has become a world lingua franca partly because it has never been shy about adopting words from all other languages with which English speakers come in contact. If the linguistic purists and grammarians had had there way, it might never have been anything more that a rather quaint stylised literary form found in parts of southern England. Unlike German it has never been spelt entirely phonetically and the grammar is often a mess. If the French are too exacting in the demands they place on those attempting to learn the language, they will simply discourage more from making the effort and French will lose more ground in its attempt to remain a world language.

[Frank Schnittger]

Well done Hugues! I felt that Mr. Bremner’s piece lacked a certain je ne sais quoi – but I wouldn’t have known what it was until you pointed it out. Let’s have debate on the added meaning provided by the third dot...

Personally I think the third dot adds a certain gravitas and provides a greater pause for reflection. It turns what could have been an off the cuff remark into a considered proclamation redolent with added profundity... ok ok ... well perhaps not. But we can have a competition as to who can post a piece with the most grammatically correct dots. If Jesuits could argue about the number of angels you could fit on the head of a pin, we can always have a blog on the THIRD DOT. That should attract the truly dotty blogsters amongst us.

[mark]

Sir,

This blog and the comments that go with it should be on the reading list for all students studying French at University. Not only does it 'accurately' explain French social habits and French culture ... (one, two, three) but it is also an hilarious read.

On a more serious note, I have just managed to pass the CAPES and I am currently preparing for la rentrée (should I put 'le' rentrée to see if I get a reaction?), but throughout the year my English was continously 'corrected' by knowelgable lecturers who appeared not to appreciate my northern(Cheshire)accent.

Eat's possybul forr a French tew talk wiz zer aksen but for an earnest young fellow from Cheshire to talk in his native accent ... (one, two, three) Eat's not possybul.

Well I don't care now anyway ... afterall I'm a fonctionnaire!

[mark]

Mr Bremner,

Is it possible to remove my e-mail address from my earlier post?

If not, I'm going to get a load of e-mails telling me 'after all' is two words and not one!

With thanks,

Mark

[Deborah]

Three years ago I wrote a letter to someone with the word accueil, and it was the only word I had spelt wrong ..... so I laughed at the French person who corrected Charles Bremner.

It is not always spelling that brings me up short, but actual words. For some reason 'Kids' is not a word I would ever use and whenever I read it, I cringe. I do agree with the fact that language evolves constantly so I wonder why I haven't evolved here!

[Sandrine]

Thank you very much Charles for your help.

Concerning the fact that French people are a little bit obsessed by grammar rules and syntax, well it's pretty true, but I wouldn't dare to correct someone I don't know at all. Maybe I consider you (Mr Bremner) as a "friend" or at least as someone I know quite well thanks to your blog, and that's why I did that.

I try not to make mistakes when I write in French even if it's not always easy, but I like looking for a word in a dictionary. Sadly, young people nowadays (I mean, younger people than me) dislike looking for words in dictionaries or making efforts in order to write correctly. They find it boring. I see that every day with my sister who is 18.

By the way Frank, I really appreciate when foreign people try to speak French, I find that very nice and very charming. So please keep speaking French, I won't say anything...

[Flocon]

Regarding the French purpotedly authorized to speak with their accent while the poor lad from Cheshire isn't, there may be another way to look at it: In schools we're taught Queen's English, the received unaccented (to our ears) English so when meeting with an English, a Scottish, an Irish or a Welch how not to be unsettled by what we perceive not fitting what we've learned to recognize? The same applies to Americans, but we know they're Americans and we do know they have an accent and a different pronunciation so we adapt. But to hear a British speak with an accent we've never heard before whereas we think he/she's supposed to speak the language we were taught and he/she actually doesn't, we simply have an adjustement process to set that often is far from natural (if speaking a foreign language ever was natural). When in a foreign country, whaever country, you mistakenly expect eveyone to speak the flawless, unaccented language you've spent years to learn.
I imagine an Irish who would have spent 5 years learning French visiting Toulouse, he really may be puzzled by the way people speak there.
I remember once at the Gare St Lazare, seing a young guy trying to make the best out of the timetable and when I went to him I simply couldn't understand ONE SINGLE word of what he was saying. Was he even speaking English? The mate was from Scottland and I remember being a tad vexed that after ô so many years of practicing English the exchange was simply impossible. I'm not even sure he could understand whatever I was saying. And I said to myself, if this guy can't speak one word (not even "merci" for my lame attempt to address him) in French when travelling abroad he could at least make the effort to be understood... But when you have an accent you don't know. It's the others who have one...

- Very witty and praiseworthy answer from Frank Snittger to a comment that wasn't.

[Hugues]

To Frank,

How should I put it? My remark was a joke, not to be taken seriously… A passing comment of no consequence clearly related to the “accueil” business from the previous post as well as the “circumflex” thing on the current one.

But I know it’s not easy to be funny. Which is why people have started to use emoticons to warn readers of the funniness of a statement. However, emoticons being, oddly enough, punctuation marks themselves, using them in a comment focusing on suspension dots would have turned a simple joke into a complex “mise en abyme” of philosophical magnitude.

Such was not my intention. :-)

[Swift]

To Frank,

You say: "It turns what could have been an off the cuff remark into a considered proclamation redolent with added profundity... ok ok ... well perhaps not."

Indeed, perhaps not: in English we say 'redolent of' not 'redolent with'!

Oh yes, and surely off-the-cuff should be hyphenated?!

(NB: I hope you all realise this is just ironic pedantry in sync with the initial post and the previous heated discussion! Please, no Grande Guerre de Grammaire...)

[Swift]

When I was an English teacher in France my pupils used to ask me to speak English with a hammed up French accent to facilitate their understanding! Naturally, I refused. It was public school mumbling for them, or nothing.

The problem was that their proper English teacher (I was just a language assistant) spoke English with the most terrible accent I have ever had the misfortune to hear - a misture of Australian, South African and Cockney.

Honestly, it was an embarrassment when, in front of the class, I had to ask her to repeat everything she was saying to me in English. I just didn't have a clue what she was prattling on about.

What is more, it became a task even more arduous when I felt morally compelled to correct the teachers on the maladroit English that they were teaching the pupils themselves... Not an enviable position!

[Swift]

Revenons a nos moutons (forgive archaic expression and lack of accent - I love dated French and I'm on an English keyboard) ... Charles made a very interesting point about spelling/blogs/sub-editors etc.

The rise of the blogging phenomenon has been, well, phenomenal. But it has betrayed a shocking ineptitude (or maybe it's just laziness) of many English speakers when it comes to written grammar and spelling.

Like Charles, I am the first to admit that my own spelling leaves a lot to be desired, while when I write quickly, I do often miss off, say, the 'y' on they.

But the amount of people who flout the rules of grammar is shocking. The most unsightly is surely mistakes involving it's/its and your/you're. Yes, I am at times equally guilty, for when I write quickly and fail to read over my phrases, occasionally I too make this fault.

I'm sure most people, however, know the rules. But this text/computer age is all about concision - more often than not to the unfortunate detriment of the language. I despise reading sentences like: "i sed im glad its over b4 da end cos its time 2 go 4ward etc."

I find it so difficult on the eye. It may take less time to write but it takes double the time and effort to read!

Finally, re making corrections: I think it is ok to correct people in a bilingual site as people are obviously learning both languages and so a little correction never goes amiss. (Sandrine, you did nothing wrong a mon avis. Reminding English speakers that accueil is spelt thus is like telling French people to drop one 'l' and not say wellcome. In fact, it's even more subtle as accueil is, as you say, a word often mis-spelt by French citizens themselves.)

Also, on some English language dicussion forums it is acceptable to correct for it can be an act of benevolence: free teaching for the masses.

Wasn't that what Voltaire was all about?

[Frank Schnittger]

Don't worry Hugues, I was well aware your contribution was a joke and was only trying to build on it by entering into the spirit of the alleged French obsession with rules.....(Deborah used 5 dots, so why can't I?)

As a kid (sorry deborah) I was a bit of a rebel and thought that rules were made to be broken - and that it was fun to get those fuddy duddy old folks cross. Far from being crestfallen, like Charles' daughter, I would have been delighted to be given a zero for a good essay, as this proved to me how stupid old folks and their rules could be.

I even got kicked out of college for refusing to do a particularly stupid test which a particularly poor lecturer made into a prerequisite for being allowed to sit the exams. I don't think I changed the world all that much, but at least I learned to stick up for myself and develop a sustained argument even if that annoyed everybody else who just wanted a quiet life. Chacun sa route as Sandrine might say!

[Frank Schnittger]

Thank you Swift, I am forever in your debt. I shall never be redolent with off the cuff remarks again. As I have just said, I was probably not an ideal student, and probably spent the hyphenation class writing silly notes to my fellow pupils. So what are the rules of hyphenation?

On a more general point, also raised by Hugues, I have to say I have never taken to "emoticons". To me saying to people "this is funny, prepare to laugh" is like the canned laughter of so many sitcoms. It's like explaining a punch-line long after the joke is over.

I often write tongue-in-cheek (is that right?) pieces taking a serious argument to a ridiculous extreme just to see how people will react. I particularly enjoy the "is this guy for real" type of consternation this often evokes. Some Irish humour is all about the double entendre and observing the reaction as a totally ridiculous yarn is spun with an entirely straight face... you have been warned… but I can’t get over the fact that somebody has invented a rule that there should be three and only three dots.

Did they have a debate on this topic at l’Académie française? Was a case made for allowing 4 dots in certain situations – for example if the writer is feeling particularly emotional about something and needs time to regain his/her composure? Who voted for and against the 3 dot rule? Did a cabal form around the 3 dotters who eventually out maneuvered and out voted the 4 dotters? Did anyone consider a compromise whereby a comma could be inserted between the dots.,.? Does a question mark count as a dot and therefore should it only be preceded by 2 dots? Is one allowed to put a question mark after the dots..? These are important questions. We need to know. All contributions gratefully received… I think we should write a history of the 3 dot rule for Wikipedia so that the Charles Bremners of this world will never commit such a terrible faux pas again.

[John Hornsby]

Too many English people have become lazy about their language - and I don't mean by this regional accents, which lend colour and variety, but the awful Estuary with its slithering vowels and dropped consonants and which has largely replaced received pronunciation or BBC English in the South East. The media, apart from the BBC, merely follow the trend: have you watched ITV's "Breakfast TV"? Sloppiness of speech, clothes or table manners betrays an attitude of mind and, having returned to the subject of manners, I think it extremely impolite of "Brits" who expect, without so much as a "Parlez-vous anglais?", French people to speak their language fluently.

[Swift]

"Tongue-in-cheek" - very good Frank, you're getting the hang of it just fine!

As for the four dots - is that not when the author wants to put a full stop to mark the definitive end to his on-going three-dot experience. (Frank, did you see what I did there with the hyphen?!)

There is normally a gap between the two sets of punctuation: ... . (I would have put my own full stop at the end of the sentence but that would have further complicated matters with a fifth dot!)

John: like you, I despise the Brits/Americans who have the temerity to speak in English from the outset in France without even the gesture of a 'parlay-vooz anglays?'.

[Chrissie Brown]

Is it a Northern characteristic to leave a space before the first of the three dots? I notice that Mark does so, and I do so myself, but your other correspondents don't usually. Of course this could be a statistical blip ...

[Edward Johns]

On seeing the title "The Pleasures of Correction" I anticipated a blog dealing with The Marquis de Sade! Quite a relief then to see that we are only airing our views about our repective languages.
I believe that the French attitude towards their language is in line with their pride in their own nation. Where they see their tongue being mistreated, in many cases they are probably defending what is to them, a very serious if not sacred thing.
You only have to look at certain linguistic examples to see how the French view not only their mother-tongue but arguably their own position in the world. I would cite as an example "Londres" rather than the natives' London. Another one would be in the archaeological and historical context--in the UK we refer to "Romano-British" whilst in French it is "gallo-romain"--an interesting reversal surely, where the invaded nation has its label occurring before that of the conquering one?
Am I making some snide allegation that the French think too much of themselves and that this is belied in their attitude towards their tongue? No, I think not, after all, they take a pride in their pride, they wouldn't have the Cock as so prominent an emblem otherwise. I feel that as rule we Brits are too self-effacing and too ready to be guilty about our history. I too deeply regret the passing of "received pronunciation" from our media--already I find that I am unable to understand certain spoken passages in English-admittedly only some "Rap" music but without a common basis for communication within UK society we will surely lose cohesion.

[Swift]

To Edward Jones: I don't think much can be said about the French's determination to refer to London as Londres. It's not as if this is a characteristic exclusively reserved to the French. Don't Italians call Rome Roma, Austrians call Vienna Wien etc. And the Anglo-Saxons themselves do insist on pronouncing what is a silent 's' in Paris...

As for the Romano-British/gallo-romain line, is it not thus because you need an 'o' for it to carry? Britisho-Roman doesn't have the same ring, while the French could not say Romano-Gallic because such pre- and suffixes do not exist in their language... Just a thought.

I did like your reference to the Marquis de Sade and the pleasures of correction, though!

[GAG]

I have always referred to The Economist Style Guide. But it hasn’t helped.
So could someone please refer me to a guide to understanding The Economist Style Guide?
GAG

[maggie]

Shouldn't Frank have put hyphens in 'out-manoeuvered' and 'out-voted' too?

If Swift had written 'his on going three dot experience' without the hyphens, it would have been pretty confusing, especially to the French readers.

I've seen French kids totally confused by 'The father bear's bed was too hard' and 'the mother bear's bed was too soft'.

It's because they put their adjectives AFTER the noun, so when they see the word 'father' above, they assume it's the subject, when acturally it's an adjective.

So that's one reason it's better to put hyphens in adjectives made up of several words, such as 'stony-hearted', 'narrow-minded', 'government-sponsored' or 'sun-loving', because it makes it a little clearer for the foreign-language speakers who are trying to figure out the meaning.

[Frank Schnittger]

I think Charles may well have been thinking of the "pleasures of correction" when he promised to do one hundred lines. Why else would you flog yourself over a spelling mistake? It may well have been an unintended double entendre harking back to a traumatic childhood event or arcane subconscious desire. However I somehow can't imagine Sandrine as a dominatrix - even if she is European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Sexual Integration...!

[Sandrine]

Well well Frank, forget the Foreign Affairs because Sexual Integration demands so much work...(héhé)
And I'd like to confirm that I'm not at all a dominatrix, I'm very very sweet-tempered !!;o)

By the way Mr Bremner, thanks again for this thread, it's very useful for people -like me- who would like to improve their English.
And Swift is a very talented teacher...

[Frank Schnittger]

Guilty! Guilty! I have been un-hyphenated for too long. I am un-done! In my defence I can say I may have been stony broke and stone hearted but I have never been stony-hearted, government-sponsored or narrow-minded. In my innocence I thought ongoing was one word and I have never had a three-dot experience before.

In order to better myself I have consulted hyphenation in Wikipedia which states “A definitive collection of hyphen rules does not exist, as evidenced by the accepted convention that adjectives of color are left open, without a hyphen. Therefore, the writer or editor should consult a manual of style or dictionary of his or her preference, particularly for the country in which they are writing. When dealing with complex words the issue of ease of reading should be uppermost in the author's mind”

Wikipedia then goes on to give pages and pages of examples where hypenation is and is not “generally” used – a list which always seems to be subject to exceptions. I can see now why non-native English speakers get intimidated by the whole process.

Wikipedia concludes: “The use of the hyphen has, in general, been steadily declining, both in popular writing and in scholarly journals. Its use is almost always avoided by those who write for newspapers, for advertising copy or for labels on packaging since they are often more concerned with visual cleanliness than semantic clarity; the words are left with spaces. However, it is still used in most (American) newspapers and magazines, thus people remain accustomed to seeing and understanding its use. In other countries hyphens are dropped in favour of connecting the two-word compounds”.

That’s ok then. Phew! It seems I’m ahead of the curve again. I’ve just been quicker to discard the hyphen than most. Anything to avoid reading like an American… (ellipsis, or dot-dot-dot, used to indicate a pause in speech, an unfinished thought or, at the end of a sentence, a trailing off into silence…(Wikipedia) as when, having raised a hare, I really don’t want to go there…

PS "To raise a hare" is idiomatic for "To introduce a topic of conversation, line of inquiry, etc"

PPS Talking to you guys is such an education!

[Tara]

These past two days have, perhaps, been the funniest of any I've ever read on blog entries.

For some reason, I've come to see all of you as characters from the old game Clue - - and I haven't an idea why. I mean that as a compliment - - in my mind, you're all terribly sophisticated, and the men wear smoking jackets while the women dress up for dinners.

But these past two days has put that funny fantasy to bed. Sigh. We're all normal.

[Robert Marchenoir]

Correct, Tara.

I, for one, always slip on a dinner jacket and white tie before sitting at the keyboard to blog for the Times. I reckon it is the proper way of doing this Internet thing.

Don't you all, gentlemen?

[colin grayson]

well what did I start here ? poor sandrine ! what I in fact did was not to criticise sandrine but to advise charles [ I feel old enough to address him as such ] to ignore her comment , not on the basis of politeness or otherwise but for the reasons explained
sandrine however felt called on to defend her reasons even though not in any way attacked , precipitating this whole debate ; as others have suggested here , a very gallic approach
hoping you are still with us sandrine , may I be so bold as to ask you a question ?
if jaques chirac the president [ beg pardon , monsieur le president de la republique ] had posted here and made that typo , would you have posted to point out his error ? may I suggest that you would not ? hypothetical I know ,as at least 3 secretaries would have checked every nuance , but I am sure you take my point
personally my problem lies in the other direction .....I ask my neighbours to point out my errors in the french language but , friendly and helpful as they have been since day one , they NEVER do ! even my closest french friend does not ; the reason being that they feel it impolite , despite all that has been said here ; my french home is in the rural south ...perhaps that makes a difference

as a footnote , may I add that some years ago when visiting the USA I heard a report regarding a kidnapping ;the police were looking for someone highly educated they said .....the kidnapper had used a semi-colon in the ransom note

[Frank Schnittger]

Sandrine - to have an Affair is slightly old fashioned English for having a relationship outside marriage - so your foreign affairs portfolio might therefore be considered an integral part of the sexual integration mandate! I have known many sweet tempered ladies who could also be very bossy, and indeed it is the sweet-tempered bossy ones who can be the most difficult to deal with!

Robert, I have always thought of you as a rather cultured sort of chap given to lengthy pauses between considered and often erudite contributions; Colonel Green perhaps?

As for myself, I am a rather brash, not-so-young-anymore, de-hyphenated up-start given to rather tedious, lengthy dissertations on all manner of subjects on which little learning is required. I do not dress for dinner - indeed I often do not dress at all. Now that should set your fantasies flowing, Tara, but no, I do not work for Sandrine!

[Frank Schnittger]

Colin - As Sandrine is European Commissioner for Sexual Integration and Foreign Affairs I'm sure she will have no difficulty in Addressing the French President in a most direct matter on pressing matters of state; show some respect will you! (did you notice the semi-colon?)

[Sandrine]

Colin, it's true that you advised Mr Bremner not to take into account my comment. But why ? I think it was useful and presented in a friendly way. So what ? I really don't understand your point.

To answer your other question, you should go on French blogs, if the writer makes a mistake, he is often corrected, and there's absolutely NO OFFENSE ! So what's the problem here ? I swear that even if Jacques Chirac himself had made a mistake, I would have said something (knowing that he is not supposed to make mistakes). I mean that he's French, and he should know how to spell French words. If he has a doubt, then he should do like me : take a dictionnary ! There are a few ones on the internet...

I know it's not easy to correct other people, that's why I NEVER do that orally, but it's easier on the web. And normally, there's no problem.

Colin, do you see what I mean ?

[Sandrine]

Colin, I forgot to say that if your neighbours and French friends never correct you, I'm not sure you can say they help you very much to improve your language. But, I'm sure, when you don't use the right word or the right expression, they correct you a bit. Don't they ? If not, then, it's very sad...

Frank, ok I see what you mean with the Foreign "Affairs"... ;o)
You're also right with the sweet-tempored ladies, do not underestimate them ! Sweet-tempered, yes, stupid, NO !!

"indeed I often do not dress at all". Now that's some very interesting news for Mr Bremner's blog !! héhé...

[john gregory Flinn]

Well, well what more can one say.
Certainly to support Sadrine's original post correcting the spelling error.
But - and I don't want to sound like a nerd here - you could have avoided all this brou'haha, Mr Bremner if you had used your 'French spellcheck' on your computer's "Word" (or equivalent) program! (It can be useful in other ways as well!)
But I suppose that would have spoilt what passes as fun for you literary types..... !

[Richard Shea]

Sir Schnittger,
a good post, but please never use 'the' with the phrase 'hoi polloi'.

[Sarah Hague]

I never use accents in French in email or on the internet anyway as you never know how they are going to look at the other end. It makes it quite stress-free writing French as the only thing left to worry about is 'according' male/female singular/plural words, oh and the subjunctive and one or two other niggly little bits like the right degree of politesse at the end.

[Vefa]

Are you, dear Monsieur Schnittger, for real?...

[colin grayson]

sandrine , I hate to be a pedant [ well I don't really :-) ] but ...
in the first place I suggested to charles that he ignore your correction for a specific reason ; if you read my original post again it is clearly stated in the same terms as it was adressed to me in the first place
secondly I did not say that my french neighbours help to correct my use of the language , in fact they do not do so ,as as I state ; what I DID say was that they are friendy and helpful , i.e. in the general and not the particular

finally , you seem to have neatly summed up the difference in our positions ; you state that you will correct people where others can observe your action , but never orally ; there is perhaps a case for this where people are anonymous , as in a blog ; but charles is obviously not in this position....personally I wouldn't anyway , except where it was obvious that it was in a tongue in cheek manner; but in private , where no third party can overhear , I am happy to do so verbally if I think it might be of assistance ; unlike you , I did charles the courtesy of presuming that the dreaded error in question was a 'typo' ; you presumed that he didn't know any better ...perhaps you are correct ,but there is an english expression about giving people the benefit of the doubt
anyway , perhaps we CAN agree that it is 'agree to differer' time , you will continue only to correct people anonymously in public , and I ,only face to face , in private

oh! footnote to frank ....yes I did notice the semi-colon and am suitably impressed ; I hate to admit that I resort to it on all ocassions possible as I find it hard to adapt to this 'no capital letters 'business and it salves my conscience a little!maybe we can start a ' proper use of the semi-colon 'campaign?

[Richard Jones]

I live in France and have worked, travelled (vélo)and eaten my way through most of it since before the war!
I think linguistic correction is a function of region. It seems to be a function of 'Ile de France' and especially of European Parisiens 'et parisiennes'.
Bretons corrected me never, but then I do speak (Welsh heritage) reasonable Breton. Alsatians and Lorrainois bothered little, perhaps there is something in their alternating between francophone and germanophone masters (Is a German who speaks the Saxon dialect called a Saxophone?).
Very rarely in Basque country. Never in Bourdeaux or Toulouse. Perhaps one's French is never corrected in those parts of France who once had a language of their own - Basque, Breton, Occitan, Languedoc.. - until French trammeled in under.
By the way, the Swiss, which ever one of their four you try and speak, will generally forego correction. Three language Belgium the same. Eye brows may circumflex but that is usually as bad as it gets.

[Roger Leale]

Colin, Colin, Colin!!!
You are either a very lazy writer of the English language, or an egotist. In both of your pieces the only capital used is the personal pronoun 'I'.
Not acceptable coming from a soi disant pedant!

[Frank Schnittger]

"Are you, dear Monsieur Schnittger, for real?... "

Thank you Vefa for the expected response, but no, I am not, I am a figment of my own imagination.

And why, pray Richard Shea, may I not use the phrase "the Hoi Polloi"? Wikipedia states as follows:

"Since "hoi" means "the", it might be said that the common usage of the hoi polloi is incorrect. However, this later usage is well-established and it is often the case that phrases borrowed from other languages become treated as single words in English.[6] The Chicago Manual of style considers the usage "the hoi polloi" to be the standard usage.[7] (Merriam) Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says:

It is interesting to note that when hoi polloi was used by writers who had actually been educated in Greek, it was invariably preceded by the. Perhaps writers such as Dryden and Byron understood that English and Greek are two different languages, and that, whatever its literal meaning in Greek, hoi does not mean "the" in English. There is, in fact, no such independent word as hoi in English — there is only the term hoi polloi, which functions not as two words but as one, the sense of which is basically "commoners" or "rabble." In idiomatic English, it is no more redundant to say "the hoi polloi" than it is to say "the rabble," and most writers who use the term continue to precede it with *the* ...[8]

[Frank Schnittger]

Or even a soi-disant pedant, Roger, as Swift might say; with a hyphen and even a semi-colon? Or should we call that a semi-Colin with a capital 'C'?

[Sandy Cattanach]

Can we get off the French and have a serious discussion about who and whom - or is the way their misuse jars just a sign of elderly pedantry? (do not waste time counting the number of times the Times get it wrong)

[Stephanie Ramasamy]

Let's all start correcting each other shall we? Not bearing in mind each other's obstacles, maybe a slight dyslexia, or what every human being is subject to, MISTAKES. But it seems that the French don't make those especially when they pronounce the 'th' in English as zzz. I think that you should only correct someone if you have a personal relationship with them, but when I was learning French over here this was applicable to every Tom, Dick and Harry I spoke to that now I have refrained in a lot of public converstaions due to patronising twats!

[Richard]

Sir Schnittger-
I requested that you please refrain from using 'the' with the phrase 'hoi polloi' and you assumed that this was for some grammatical purpose. To assume makes an ass out of me and, well, gives you something witty to write. Perhaps I simply have a deep sexual fetish that is ruined when 'the' creeps in to a Greek phrase with a definite article. Please, ponder that idea at your leisure.
If I follow your stunning assumption, I cannot help but agree that everything you stated is indeed in the reference work you cited. Good for you. When you offered your own insight, I became perplexed. I do not have your stunning erudition, and perplexity is my lot. Please tolerate a lesser mind. You wrote:
"There is, in fact, no such independent word as hoi in English — there is only the term hoi polloi, which functions not as two words but as one, the sense of which is basically "commoners" or 'rabble.'"
If you write it, it must be so. Though I am in your corner, classicists such as the late Adolph Kaegi are not. As English has the definite article, so does Greek. Greek uses this article in many wonderful ways that English cannot. In his fine tome on Greek grammar, Kaegi writes that 'hoi' is often either individualizing or generalizing in force. He clearly states that 'polloi' and 'hoi polloi' are different expressions. Smyth is in agreement, emphasizing 'the' in this particular use of the definite article.
In short, something may be deemed permissible from chronic misuse, but that does not make it acceptable.
Finally, Herr Schnittger, there is a fine line in grammar, as in life, between being anal and being an ass.