Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 September 8

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September 8

French 'de le' --> 'du', and 'de les' --> 'des': an exception?

Quote: La mort de Le Corbusier m'a rempli d'une joie immense. Le Corbusier était une creature pitoyable travaillant en béton armé. (Salvador Dalí, 1969)

• The first thing that I noticed was that it wasn't La mort du Corbusier .... Is this a standard exception for personal names and pseudonyms?

It doesn't seem to be the case for titles of books etc.

• ... la publication du "Pere Goriot" - referring to the novel Le Père Goriot
• Musique des pêcheurs de perles - referring to the opera Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers)
• many other examples.

Or was Dalí, being Spanish, speaking broken French? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:17, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

References

French Wikipedia uses "de Le Corbusier" near-universally. In fact, the article has a cite note which I believe encourages it when referring to the artist, with "du Corbusier" being reserved for referring to one of his achievements instead. Whether this is a common stylistic theme throughout all of French, however, is beyond me. GalacticShoe (talk) 06:00, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

I found over 100 uses of "de Le Corbusier" in Le Monde diplomatique: La ville La Roche, chef-d'œuvre de Le Corbusier; la chaise longue de Le Corbusier; moquer des lunettes de Le Corbusier; des groupies de Le Corbusier; le cadavre superexquis de Le Corbusier, although that last one might be the words of Dali. In fact it's from a letter written by Dali which goes:

Le cadavre exquis du Corbu, le Corbu du corbillard, le cadavre superexquis de Le Corbusier, le courbillon en ciment et acier du Corbusier, Corbu de l'arbousier, le cadavre exquis du Corbu. Dans la Cour d'Appel, le Corbu montre le cas. Il le montre, le cas. La Cour examine le cas du Corbu, le cas et le ça, le ça et le cas, le cas du Corbu recorbuyoté au corbillon du cas, du ça, du cas, du caca, du Corbu, la castration, l’hibernation, la lévitation, l’antigravitation dans la basse-cour de Le Corbusier…

with a use of du Corbusier mixed in there. (I guess "courbillon" is a play on tourbillon. I have no idea about "recorbuyoté au corbillon".)  Card Zero  (talk) 06:17, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

"Corbillon" is also a play on "court-bouillon", in which case "recorbuyoté au corbillon" sort of makes sense. Xuxl (talk) 13:23, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Googling the question (my search term was contraction de le du avec noms propres), I find lots of forum discussions on the topic (e.g. [3], [4]). The tenor is that names of persons are not contracted (Le Corbusier is an often cited example), the names of places are usually contracted (du Havre), as are articles in the titles of novels and such. Clearly, in the latter case, the article is perceived as just that, an ordinary article, whereas in the names of people it is perceived as an integral, unmodifiable part of that name. Place names are inbetween, it seems that most are contracted, but that is not universal. --Wrongfilter (talk) 07:47, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

In English we similarly write "a New York Times headline"^[5] and not "a The New York Times headline".  --Lambiam 15:25, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand, it would be "a The The concert", not "a The concert".  Card Zero  (talk) 16:17, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you going to the The The concert?

I'm not sure about this comparison, Lambiam. The English example is about dropping the "the" after an article (either def or indef: "I read the NYT headline"; "I read it in a NYT article").

There's also the phenomenon of dropping the "the" but not from the object of the phrase. In TV speak, when referring to a new episode of some long-running show (e.g. The Chase) rather than the repeats they've been foisting on us for weeks, they'll say: "New The Chase", rather than "The new The Chase" or "The new Chase").

My question is about not so much dropping 2 words and replacing them with 1, but about transforming 2 into 1. Same end result, I know. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:44, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

When "de Le Corbusier" is contracted to "du Corbusier", it means that the author treats "Le" as an ordinary article; one would expect this author also to prefer "Celui-ci est un autre Corbusier que le public connaît" ("This is another Corbusier than the public knows"). Note that, say, "This is not the Le Corbusier that the public is allowed to see" would normally be, in French, "Celui n'est pas le Le Corbusier que le public est autorisé à voir." The pseudonym derives from an Old French professional surname equivalent to "The Cobbler", and Dali's grammatical maltreatment is what one should expect from someone treating "corbusier" as if it is a common noun. Dali's use is not standard, doubtlessly so on purpose. I reacted, though, to the observation that it is common in French to perceive articles in the titles of novels and such as ordinary articles and gave what I think is an example of a similar case in English.  --Lambiam 19:31, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

It's surrealist wordplay, very Daliesque... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:43, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

It would be "a concert", though.  --Lambiam 17:57, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Once in 2005 I was pleased to see the phrase a Qaeda member. —Tamfang (talk) 23:26, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Younger people these days would be more likely to say "a al-Qaeda member". The a short like "uh", followed by a shocking glottal stop. Tragic. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:09, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Not only younger people these days. As I've quoted here before, from A Streetcar Named Desire (1947): "And wasn't we happy together? Wasn't it all OK? Till she showed here. Hoity-toity, describin' me like a ape." Deor (talk) 19:26, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I have always depended on the kindness of ref desk editors who come up with germane quotes. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 03:28, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Dickens: “the law is a ass” —Tamfang (talk) 22:29, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It was quite a shock when youngsters started to call it "a day" instead of calling it "an day". In the MS Cotton Caligula A.ix, dating from the third quarter of the 13th century, the scribe renders the inception of Layamon's Brut as "An preost", but a copy made half a century later, the MS Cotton Otho C.xiii, has "A prest".^[6]  --Lambiam 19:47, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I saw that in your edit summary and assumed it meant "see you soon", but I guess not. --Trovatore (talk) 19:51, 13 September 2024 (UTC)