In a nutshell | Spoiled for choice

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.

Should we write “what is happening” or “what is happening”? we are regularly asked.

The choice is yours, although some find the “what he” twist more neat. Both constructions, personal and impersonal, are also possible with certain other verbs, as will be seen later.

We may well find that it is simpler to write “what is happening”, or wonder about the fact that we now often hear “what is happening”, it remains that both formulations are accepted . Tastes and colors, we do not discuss.

However, an author will be asked to stick to one of the two turns within the framework of a text, so as not to cause confusion.

“What is happening” is therefore an impersonal construction. the he which is used here is the same he neutral found in a sentence like it’s snowing, which represents nothing — it is called the apparent (or grammatical) subject. It’s not the personal pronoun he that we would use in a sentence like He went to the newspaperwhere he would designate a colleague.

The (many) meteorological verbs — drizzle, drizzle, hail, snow, thunder, etc — are essentially impersonal and are used in the third person singular.

With rainwe can however see other constructions, underlines Jean Girodet in Pitfalls and difficulties of the French language. It is raining. It was raining shells and bombs. Shells and bombs rained down.

A verb like to need is always impersonal. We write “what he”, although we hear “what”. what i need, what we need. I don’t know what should be done.

Other verbs, for example to arrive Where stay, make us doubt, as pass. But, again, we have a choice. So we also write The government knows what it has to do that The government knows what it has to do. We wonder what will happen to us if he does nothing Where We wonder what will happen to us if he does nothing.