Posted at 6:00 p.m.
Without thinking about it (or knowing it), we commonly use Latin words and Latin phrases like alibi, alternate ego, roughly speaking, in vitro, slip, postpartum, status quo (which is written status quo in English), virus, Visa Where vice versa. This adverbial phrase can be written with or without a hyphen, as desired, just like my culpa. Do your mea culpathat is to say confessing one’s fault or recognizing one’s wrongs.
In writing, you don’t have to italicize the most frequently used Latin words and Latin phrases. They can be left in roman type, like the other words. Moreover, words can remain invariable and be written without accent as creed Where vetobut others are Frenchified as deficit Where referendum.
Certain Latin words are found more particularly in articles dealing with judicial news and miscellaneous facts. We will thus describe the modus operandi of a criminal, that is to say his modus operandi, his way of proceeding. The modus operandi of a serial killer.
It may seem odd, but some words of Latin origin are considered Anglicisms, which are best avoided in French. Thereby, momentumwhich does not lack synonyms in French such as, depending on the context, cadence, favorable situation, momentum, launched Where rhythm.
To The Presswe therefore correct the Anglicism “affidavit”, to which we prefer the term affidavit (and not sworn) which moreover replaced affidavit in the Code of Civil Procedure. We also replace “subpoena” by subpoena.
We will not use the term figuratively either. post mortem – which means after death –, to speak of the “in-depth examination of a situation, of a failure” or of an “analysis after the fact”. We can also speak of a balance sheet. Or use the word autopsy. The party must carry out the autopsy of its electoral campaign. But post mortem can be used literally in French. Injuries inflicted post-mortem. Posthumous wounds.
On the other hand, a Latin word like consortiumwhich designates a “group of companies formed for the realization of a financial or economic operation”, which also came to French through English, is admitted. A project carried out in consortium. The same is true for the name media. Event covered by the media. Social media.
Access or excess of madness?
Should we say that such a person acted in a fit of madness or in an excess of madness?
Answer
The name access can designate a “morbid crisis which, in certain affections, can return intermittently”. Cough, fever. Have a fit of madness. By extension, the word also designates a “sudden and temporary interior movement under the influence of which one acts”. A fit of anger, rage, despair, giggles.
But excesswhich we would not use with madness, is not necessarily otherwise faulty. It “can also be used when talking about emotions, moods. […] Nevertheless, excess expresses the idea of overflow, of overflow”, explains the Linguistic Assistance Bank of the Office québécois de la langue française. Excess of language, rigor, excess of speed, excess of work, fatigue, zeal. An excess of confidence, of pride. An excess of precautions, scruples, prudence.