The French language is evolving at breakneck speed. Each week, our language advisor dissects the words and expressions that make the headlines or give us trouble.
Posted yesterday at 7:00 p.m.
Right now, in Quebec, it’s a woman, Ms.e Julie Baillargeon-Lavergne, who is a public curator and who is therefore at the head of the institution known as the Curateur public.
It is a woman, Guylaine Leclerc, who is Auditor General and who heads the institution known as the Auditor General of Quebec. It is also a woman, Karen Hogan, who is the Auditor General of Canada and who heads the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. The Office of Inspector General (BIG) is also headed by a woman, Brigitte Bishop, who is Inspector General of the City of Montreal. Joanne Castonguay is the Commissioner of Health and Welfare for the Government of Quebec; the site reads “Meet the Health and Welfare Commissioner’s Team”.
Why use the masculine when a woman holds such a position? This is because we distinguish between the organization – whose official name we respect – and the function, which is written without an initial capital letter, like all function titles.
By doing so, we are simply following a rule. “Even if epicene writing is favored in several writing contexts, the introduction of feminine variants is not always appropriate,” points out the Linguistic Troubleshooting Bank of the Office québécois de la langue française.
“Thus, we will faithfully reproduce, without feminizing them or making them neutral, the official names of departments or organizations formulated in the masculine, for example: the Bureau du coroner, the Curateur public du Québec, the Comptroller of finances, the Director of civil status, the Québec Ombudsman, the Auditor General of Québec, the Consumer Protection Office, etc. It is up to the departments and bodies to establish their official title and to ensure its feminization, or to opt for a neutral formulation (in particular by the use of collective names or epicene expressions). »
The capital letter is therefore used when referring to the organization. If it is the person, the lowercase is appropriate. We write for example: The Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) authorizes and directs criminal and penal prosecutions on behalf of the Quebec state. Me Patrick Michel has been Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions since April 23, 2021.
Why “congratulate” yourself?
A person noting a hoped-for improvement in a subject says that he “welcomes” such improvement, even if he has nothing to do with it. Isn’t there a more relevant form of sentence like “she sees this improvement and is delighted”?
Answer
We could replace to congratulate by be delighted in this sentence, but it is not necessary. They are synonyms. The verb to congratulate has here the meaning of “to consider oneself happy, to rejoice at an event for which one is not oneself directly responsible”. We welcome the successful outcome of this case.