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 at 1:00 p.m.
The imperative can create a surprising amount of trouble for us, especially in writing. We have to write know, hear, give me some, leave it to him, let her talk to him, think about it, go, go ahead, go away, let’s move on, etc
We don’t always know in which order to put the pronouns that follow a verb in the imperative. This mode, let us remember, is that of order (and advice, wish, desire, etc.), and is only conjugated in the second person singular and the first two people plural (say, let’s say, saynot “say”).
We write for example give it to us, give it to him, give it to them. Concretely, we first say what must be given (denoted by the or by the), before specifying to whom. There are two hyphens.
Popular usage says “give it to me”, “give it back to us”. We avoid these faulty turns in writing, which must be more careful than oral.
When a sentence is in the negative form, the order of the pronouns is reversed. The hyphens disappear. Don’t tell me (not “tell me not”). To remember this, we can think of the sentence with the subject: (You) don’t tell me. We remove the subject youand the order of the words remains the same: Don’t tell me. Don’t give it to us. Don’t take it away from me. Don’t be told again.
An exception further complicates things a bit, again in a negative sentence. The order is different if we use the pronouns him and their. Don’t give it to him. Don’t give it to him. Don’t give them back. Don’t give it back to him. Don’t hide it from them. Don’t let him see it.
There is also an additional difficulty with the construction take it for granted. According to Jean Girodet, author of Pitfalls and difficulties of the French language, in Bordas, the order of the pronouns is not the same in the singular and in the plural. We therefore write: Take it for grantedbut Take it for granted. With hyphens, although it is found elsewhere elsewhere.
We can always circumvent the difficulty and instead exclaim: Let’s take it for granted!
Word entirety
I would like to know if the use of the word entiretywhich is increasingly widespread, is correct.
Answer
Word entirety is a synonym of totality orentirety. An entire manuscript. It is mainly used in Belgium and Luxembourg, the dictionaries point out Robert and Larousse. We could obviously add: and in Quebec. It is not a recent word. According to Robertit had gone out of use in the 17the century and was revived in the XXe century. We also use “in its entirety” to mean in full, entirely. The problem must be considered in its entirety.
The name entirety also means “the fact of being whole” for a person, that is to say someone who “allows no restriction, no half-measure”. The dictionary refers to synonyms categorical, obstinate Where stubbornfor example. Have a whole character. The wholeness of his character was not appreciated by all.