{"id":34625,"date":"2022-03-15T05:30:49","date_gmt":"2022-03-15T04:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=34625"},"modified":"2022-03-13T21:00:02","modified_gmt":"2022-03-13T20:00:02","slug":"miscellaneous-march","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/miscellaneous-march\/","title":{"rendered":"Miscellaneous March"},"content":{"rendered":"

After last week\u2019s Pop & Politics<\/a>, this week were back with a little bit of a miscellaneous March potpourri. We\u2019ve got a little more politics, some vocabulary, and a pronoun debate. Bonne lecture<\/strong>!1<\/a><\/sup>Happy reading!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo CC0 from Miguel\u00a0\u00c1. Padri\u00f1\u00e1n \u00a0www.pexels.com<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Sondage<\/h3>\n

The premier tour de l\u2019\u00e9lection pr\u00e9sidentielle<\/strong>2<\/a><\/sup>first round of the Presidential election)<\/em><\/span>\u00a02022 is less than a month away (April 10; with the second tour<\/a>, if needed, scheduled for two weeks later, April 24) and FranceInfo is out with an early\u00a0sondage<\/strong>3<\/a><\/sup>suvery<\/em><\/span> of people\u2019s likely votes. As they remind us, \u201cun sondage n’est pas une pr\u00e9diction, mais une photographie de l’opinion \u00e0 un instant donn\u00e9. Un sondage est n\u00e9cessairement assorti d’une marge d\u2019erreur, dite aussi “marge d\u2019incertitude” ou “intervalle de confiance<\/strong><\/a>“<\/em>4<\/a><\/sup>a survey is not a prediction, but a snapshot of public opinion at a specific moment. A survey always has some margin of error, also known as a \u201cmargin of uncertainty\u201d or \u201cconfidence gap\u201d.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

With that in mind, they tell us that, if the elections were held now, Macron would be in the lead with about 30% of the vote. His likely challenger in a run off election if nothing changes, Marine Le Pen, would get about 16% of the vote. In a run off deuxi\u00e8me tour<\/strong>, Macron would carry the vote with approximately 60% of likely voters, to 40% for Le Pen.<\/p>\n

Born in the U.S.A<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve mentioned before<\/a>\u00a0how – linguistically speaking – some people make the difference between l\u2019anglais<\/strong> (English<\/em>) et l\u2019am\u00e9ricain<\/strong> (American English<\/em>) and how I more accurately live aux \u00c9tats-Unis d\u2019Am\u00e9rique<\/strong>5<\/a><\/sup>in the United States of America<\/em><\/span> than en Am\u00e9rique<\/strong>6<\/a><\/sup>in America<\/em><\/span>. But until now, I was pretty confident that I was Am\u00e9ricain<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019ve learned that some people prefer the term \u00c9tats-unien<\/strong> (or \u00c9tatsunien<\/strong>; \u00e9tats-unien\/\u00e9tatsunien<\/strong> (with a lower case \u00e9<\/em>) when used as an adjective) as a more accurate way to refer to \u2018les Am\u00e9ricains des \u00c9tats-Unis<\/strong>\u20197<\/a><\/sup>Americans from the United States<\/em><\/span>. While you\u2019ll readily find that most people assume that Am\u00e9ricains<\/strong> refers to the inhabitants of the US and are unlikely to confuse you for a Canadian, Mexican, or Argentinian if you refer to yourself as un<\/strong> (or une<\/strong>) Am\u00e9ricain(e)<\/strong>, next time you want to impress your friends, why not tell them that you\u2019re un<\/strong> (or une<\/strong>) \u00c9tats-unien(e)<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

While I only recently came across the term, it appears to have a long history appearing for the first time, according to this blog post<\/a>, in a Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois political magazine in 1934.<\/p>\n

A pronoun debate<\/h3>\n

Unlike English – where the pronoun\u00a0they<\/em> can be used in the singular when you want to avoid\u00a0(or aren\u2019t sure whether to use)\u00a0he\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0she<\/em> – French has traditionally had no gender-neutral third-person pronouns (singular and plural alike, both\u00a0il\/ils\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0elle\/elles\u00a0<\/em>can mean\u00a0it\/them<\/em>, but they are always gendered).<\/p>\n

In the same way that the introduction of\u00a0l\u2019\u00e9criture inclusive<\/strong><\/a> has proven to be controversial<\/a> (l\u2019Academie fran\u00e7aise remains formally opposed) a decision by the online version of the French dictionary giant\u00a0Robert<\/em><\/a> to include the new gender neutral pronoun\u00a0iel<\/em> (and it\u2019s equivalent\u00a0ielle<\/em>) has reignited the debate.<\/p>\n

You may not have occasion to use it in your own life, but if you see it now you\u2019ll know that it\u2019s not just a typo but a new option for people who want more flexible and inclusive options in their writing.<\/p>\n