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.
It is already the second Sunday of Advent, this “Christian liturgical period which begins on the fourth Sunday preceding the feast of Christmas and during which one prepares for the coming of Christ”, according to the definition of Large terminology dictionary of the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).
Because this period precedes Christmas, we often tend to write the front rather than adventwhich is understandable since the name Advent is little used.
It comes from Latin adventus which means “arrival, coming (of Jesus Christ)” and is of the same etymological family as the verbs come and happen and that the name advent – but before is not part of this family. He was born the divine child / Let us all sing his advent.
We often see this name written with a capital A, Advent, but in the newspaper, we prefer lowercase, like the OQLF, the Robert Where Antidotewhich explains : “As it is a whole period that is designated by the word Advent and not a single feast day, it is recommended to write it with a lowercase letter, as for the name of Lent or Ramadan. » Give an advent calendar to your children. The four Sundays of Advent.
It is important to respect the rules of orthotypography with particular regard to the use of lowercase and uppercase. We thus distinguish the Christian confession, Catholic Churchof the building. The choir of a church.
It is the same for Islam and Islam. The name of the religion is written with a lowercase letter, as one writes buddhism, catholicism, hinduism Where Judaism. The Five Pillars of Islam. But a capital I designates “all the peoples who profess this religion and the civilization which characterizes them”. The countries of Islam.
The names of the followers of a religion do not take capital letters either. Buddhists, the Catholics, hindus, the Jews, Muslims. But we put a capital J to Jewish if it’s about the people. Persecutions suffered by the Jews. It is also customary to put an initial capital letter to the word Muslim if it designates a people. Bosnian Muslims.
Finally
Talented communicators began to say “in the end”. It comes out of nowhere and it’s very ugly. When will this twist go out of fashion?
Answer
The expression “in the end” seems to be supplanting the many synonyms, at the end, all things Considered, after all, ultimately, in total, Short, decidedly, ultimately, finally, as a last resort, in the final analysis, at the end of the day, In summary, essentially, finally, ultimately, to finish, all in all, all things Considered, all well weighed, altogether.
No doubt it is a language tic, a coquetry, which one adopts to follow a fashion, perhaps even mechanically, and which in fact leads to an impoverishment of vocabulary. Because as the spelling champion Bruno Dewaele points out, this expression (which now appears in the Little Robertbut remains criticized) fills no need and is not “syntactically well-formed”.
Nothing justifies it either for the French Academy, which still considers this construction as grammatically faulty because final, in French, is an adjective and not a noun. According to the sources consulted, the explanations that refer to the music final or the sports final are without foundation. According to Jean-Pierre Colignon, former chief proofreader of the Worldit is simply “barbarism”, an “unacceptable twist”.