Chez Cosette

Stéphane Péchard

2:01 PM

'tout seul' pour un homme, 'toute seule' pour une femme

Jez

hmm

et pour un truc de la grammaire? ;-)

Stéphane Péchard

quoi comme truc ?

Jez

vois:french.stackexchange.com/questions/301/…

> Mais quelque fois j'ai vu « ne » (ou « n' ») tout seul

Stéphane Péchard

et ?

'tout seul' oui

Evpok

@Jez C'est masculin (en fait neutre, mais peu importe)

Louhike

2:07 PM

@Jez You should say "regarde" instead of "vois"

Jez

ah

Evpok

3

Q: How to translate Dutch expression "Ere wie de ere toekomt" to French?

How to translate Dutch expression "Ere wie de ere toekomt" in French? I found this in Concise dictionary of European proverbs: à chacun selon ses oeuvres à chacun selon son dû à tout seigneur, tout honneur rendez à César ce qui appartient à César rendez donc à César ce qui est à César, et à Di...

Le tag "néerlandais", c'est acceptable? ça fait un peu meta-tag, non?

Jez

t'as raison

Louhike

ça me parait correct

Mais je ne connais pas assez bien la nuance entre les tags normaux et les meta tag

Jez

peut-être il ne fait pas un meta-tag pour les questions de traduction cependent?

Evpok

2:09 PM

Je ne suis pas très au fait de la politique de SX sur les tags, mais il me semble que ça a déjà été dit, non?

Jez

pour ces questions il indique la langue source?

Evpok

@Jez Dans ce cas, oui, mais il faudra rédiger les notices dans ce sens

Louhike

@Jez I hompe I'm not discouraging you when I'm correcting you. You have a better level for French that I have for English :(

Jez

de rien @Louhike

M'vy

Est-ce que votre compte FLU apparaît sur StackExchange?

Jez

2:11 PM

@Evpok ok je le fait et nous verrons

@Mvy probablement quand il serait en beta publique

Evpok

@Mvy Non, pas encore

@Jez :)

M'vy

Pourtant il est dans la courbe de reputation :P

Evpok

@Mvy Les voies du seigneur...

Jez

"Questions qui s'agissent avec la traduction de néerlandais." - c'est correct?

Evpok

Questions de traduction depuis le néerlandais perhaps

Question en rapport avec la traduction du néerlandais

Jez

2:21 PM

"Ce tag indique que la question s'agit d'un traduction depuis la language néerlandaise à la language française."

c'est correct? :-)

Evpok

Ce tag indique que la question concerne une traduction du néerlandais au français

Jez

pas 'la langue...'?

il devrait être plus longue

"Ce tag indique que la question concerne une traduction de la langue néerlandaise à la langue française."

Louhike

@Jez language => langage. C'est une erreur courante, j'écrivais souvent 'langage' en Anglais avant.

Stéphane Péchard

@Jez concerne => porte sur

Evpok

@Jez L'emploi de la langue pour désigner un langage se perd. Ça sonne vraiment étrange pour moi, As if I theed thee :)

Jez

2:25 PM

la langage?

hmm

Evpok

le langage

Stéphane Péchard

Je dirais : "Ce tag indique que la question porte sur la traduction d'une expression du néerlandais au français"

Jez

arghhhhh

Stéphane Péchard

et je vire les coups de langue :-)

Jez

je me suis soumis avec 'la langage' :-)

Evpok

2:26 PM

@StéphanePéchard +1

Louhike

Mais on ne dit pas "le langage français", on dit "la langue française" ou "le français"

Evpok

@Jez Be bold :)

Jez

wtf? now it's la langue again?

Louhike

On utilise langage de manière plus générale ou pour désigner une langage informatique

Jez

quelle bordel

Stéphane Péchard

2:27 PM

@Jez tu t'es soumis toi-même ? :-)

Louhike

Le langage C

Stéphane Péchard

la langue, mais le langage

Evpok

@Louhike \o/

Stéphane Péchard

c'est logique ;-)

Jez

j'ai entendu "la langue" beaucoup

Stéphane Péchard

2:28 PM

oui c'est bon

Jez

french.stackexchange.com/tags/neerlandais/info

Louhike

un langage* je fais les mêmes fautes que @Jez :p

Jez

il a besoin d'approbation de la communauté

M'vy

yep

Louhike

FL&U Community Seal Of Approval !

M'vy

2:29 PM

750 rep

nobody has that much

ask a mod

Louhike

Yes

Evpok

Or upvote the nice chatters here so they could approve

Jez

FX will soon

Evpok

;)

Jez

1

French Language & Usage – french.stackexchange.com

Beta Q&A site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the French language.

Currently in private beta.

M'vy

2:31 PM

I'll get that in some days too I guess

Jez

38.5
questions
per day

M'vy

Hit the rep cap again

Jez

pas mal ;-)

Louhike

Gilles and Raphink will be close soon too

99% answered, almost perfect !

Stéphane Péchard

@Louhike je ne vois pas d'unanswered sur le site...

Louhike

2:33 PM

C'est mis à jour à une certaine heure toutes les nuits

Stéphane Péchard

ok

F'x

@StéphanePéchard le support de l'objective-C moderne s'est bien amélioré pour GCC 4.6

sinon, ça reste limité par le runtime que tu as derrière (i.e. Apple ou GNUstep)

Stéphane Péchard

oui, mais de toute façon, Apple passe sur llvm

F'x

mais c'est assez confortable pour tout ce qui est programmation d'IU

@StéphanePéchard et llvm n'a pas de front-end Fortran :(

donc j'espère que le support de GCC pour Mac va tenir le plus longtemps possible

Stéphane Péchard

ben le dernier XCode inclut llvm et lldb

ils ont pas encore viré gcc ni gdb mais qui sait...

on fait plus beaucoup de Fortran

notamment pour faire de l'UI

F'x

2:40 PM

@StéphanePéchard hum, hum :)

non, mais ne plus avoir de compilo Fortran libre pour une plateforme qui sert pas mal de besoin scientifiques, ce serait pénible

par ailleurs, llvm semble pas encore parfait pour le C++ moderne

enfin bon, j'ai longtemps été impliqué dans GCC, donc c'est sûr que je porte encore un peu la bannière :)

Stéphane Péchard

non, pas encore, mais ça aussi Apple s'en fout

Evpok

2

A: L'usage de « ne » sans un mot associé?

Il y a trois manières de former une phrase négative en français. Avec « ne » seulement. C'est un usage vielli, qui ne se rencontre plus de nos jours sauf dans quelques expressions figées (qui elles-même appartiennent en général à la langue soutenue). Voir la partie I.A de l'entrée du TLF. F...

"Cette forme est relativement moderne appartient exclusivement au langage familier, parlé."

Je flame ou pas?

Louhike

11

A: J'ai bien peur que tu n'aies raison : faut-il mettre le mot « ne »?

Les deux formes sont correctes. La deuxième est une figure de style appelée le "ne explétif" ou "semi-négation" (voir http://grammaire.reverso.net/3_1_40_ne_expletif.shtml et http://french.about.com/od/grammar/a/negation_form_2.htm). Ce "ne" n'a pas de sens négatif et n'a pas de caractère obliga...

Je pense

Il y a ce principe du "ne explétif"

M'vy

oui j ai hésité sur le duplicate

mais là c'est une négation

Evpok

Pour moi Personne n'est parfait c'est une phrase positive, dont le pronom personne est le sujet et dont le n' est purement phonétique

Louhike

2:48 PM

Mais le "exclusivement familier", c'est pour l'utilisation de l'auxiliaire négatif seul

Genre j'aime pas

Pas pour le "ne" seul

Evpok

Donc je ne suis pas d'accord avec sa réponse pour commencer, mais le coup du exclusivement familier, parlé ça me gonfle vraiment

Surtout après une conférence d'un après-midi sur le thème "c'est une évolution naturelle pour les langues romanes"

Stéphane Péchard

Il fait quoi dans la vie ce Gilles pour répondre autant aux questions ?

Louhike

@Evpok Est-ce la suppression du "ne" qui est l'évolution?

Evpok

@Louhike Oui, ou sa contextualisation. En gros le même phénomène s'est déjà produit en Piémontais et est en cours en Italien et peut-être dans d'autres langues.

Louhike

@StéphanePéchard Je ne sais pas, mais ses réponses sont souvent intéressantes alors je ne m'en plains pas.

Stéphane Péchard

2:52 PM

oui bien sûr, mais ça soulève d'autant plus la question :-)

Louhike

Je ne savais pas que les Piémontais avaient leur propre langue, je pensais qu'ils parlaient aussi Italien

Même si L'italie est assez récente

Qu'ils ne parlaient QU'Italien plutôt

Dans un sens, la France a presque 1600 ans et il y a encore de nombreuses langues, même si ça se perd

Le Picard a presque disparu

Evpok

Piémontais

Le piémontais (piemontèis en piémontais, piemontese en italien) est une langue parlée par plus de 2 millions de locuteurs dans le Piémont, une région du nord-ouest de l'Italie. Le piémontais fait partie de l'ensemble linguistique italien septentrional (avec le lombard, l'émilien-romagnol, le ligure, le vénitien et l'istriote) et se rattache au groupe occidental des langues romanes, comme le français, l'occitan et le catalan. Le piémontais est considéré comme une langue minoritaire distincte de l´italien par Ethnologue.com et par le Red Book de l´UNESCO[3]. Bien que parfois considéré com...

@Louhike Et le breton, le gallo, le basque, le catalan, le franco-provençal, l'alsacien...

Ah, et le corse. lmao

Louhike

Parler ce type de langue parait ringard pour de nombreuses personnes

Raphink

Ma femme parle le Papiemento :-)

Papiamento

pardon

:)

Evpok

@Louhike Les pauvres gens. Ne savent pas ce qu'ils perdent :)

Louhike

2:59 PM

Le problème c'est que l'on considère ces langues comme des patois de vieux et paysans, et qu'on ne les met pas au même niveau que le Français, l'Anglais,...

Evpok

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages

The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. The preparation for the charter was undertaken by the predecessor to the current Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, the Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe because involvement of local and regional government was essential. The actual charter was written in the Parliamentary Assembly based on the Congress' Recommendations....

Parles-en au parlement français.

Louhike

3:25 PM

@Evpok Le problème c'est que l'on craint une augmentation du 'patriotisme régional' en défaveur du nationalisme

Le mot 'nationalisme' est peut-être un peu fort

Mince il est parti

Je vais partir aussi d'ailleurs

Aurevoir !

Jez

3:39 PM

le "patriotisme régional" d'un homme est le "nationalisme" d'un autre ;-)

pour exemple, les écossais; nationalistes, ou régionalistes?

Gilles

7:43 PM

@Jez Conversely, you're ignoring everyone who committed in the hope that the site would be unilingual

@Jez I don't see what's arrogant about proposing something. <removes French.SE participant's hat, dons SE chat moderator's hat> On a related note, this isn't the first time you've been reminded: be nice

Jez

@Gilles I don't know where they would reasonably have obtained that hope

Gilles

21 hours ago, by Gilles

Consider: what will happen if someone proposes a French-only site?

21 hours ago, by Gilles

I'll bet it gets closed as a duplicate of this one.

21 hours ago, by Borror0

Bet? It happened. I proposed it. It got closed as duplicate.

@Borror0 I can't find it on Area 51, was it deleted?

Jez

you're talking to me and not Robert?

Borror0

@Gilles I suppose so. It was immediately closed after I proposed it.

Jez

I didn't close it, and whatsmore I seem to recall Borror0 changing the description to point to my proposal

my proposal talked about questions in English and French

Yeah, Robert changed that, but against my wishes

@Borror0 you're not talking about Bon Usage, then...

Borror0

7:54 PM

@Jez No. I'm talking about a proposal I made less than a day after you've proposed yours. I figured, if his isn't too close to Bon usage, my version of it won't be.

Apparently, the Area51 gods has no problem with double standards

Jez

if you say so.

anyway, you know what my position on it is.

Borror0

It's always very easy to know what your position is, Jez

Jez

and yours likewise :-)

Borror0

@Gilles Everything I posted about it is gone, except this MSO post.

Gilles

@Evpok Ben non, je ne suis pas le seul

@Jez Yeah, I remember that. It was an exact duplicate of an existing proposal (which IIRC was less settled on allowing questions in English). That proposal was eventually closed as a duplicate of yours, for some reason.

Borror0

7:59 PM

@Gilles His got in the commitment phase first. That's how it is supposed to work.

Jez

which existing proposal?

there was no existing proposal for that

Borror0

Le bon usage du français

Jez

that was french-only

Gilles

@Jez I don't remember, it was deleted

Borror0

English-French translation, then?

Gilles

8:00 PM

But I do remember I'd been following that proposal for a while, and then one day I learned that it was closed as a duplicate of yours

Jez

that's not the same as FL&U

Gilles

@Borror0 I think that's the one

Borror0

@Jez Still, it was closed as a duplicate of this proposal

Jez

@Borror0 again, you're talking to me when i didn't close it

Gilles

The title was in French, the original plan was to allow English questions but there was some debate about that

Borror0

8:01 PM

@Jez I'm answering your questions, Jez. What I am doing is very on-topic. Never did I accuse you of closing them.

Gilles

Jez

well ok then. for the record i don't remember a duplicate proposal of mine having existed before i created mine, i don't consider bon usage a duplicate

Borror0

@Gilles You're thinking of Le bon usage du français. It planned to allow English questions, but not English translations.IIRC.

Jez

but... can't we all just get along?

Borror0

@Jez But the SEI closed it as duplicate. Same for my monolingual proposal.

Jez

8:03 PM

I personally have no problem with your creating a monolingual proposal.

Borror0

I know.

Gilles

@Jez The problem is that we want contradictory things. I want a site that's attractive to a French native who doesn't speak English. You want a site that has questions in English. SE doesn't want to set up a way to filter questions by language.

Jez

@Gilles actually they might. aren't they going to do localization?

Gilles

I think Borror0's concern is different from mine (but happens to have the same goal), I'll let him explain

@Jez UI localization, yes. Not question filters.

Jez

@Gilles If you look on area51, i did post a comment where i supported the idea of tagging by language

unfortunately they consider that meta-tagging and so said it wasn't appropriate

Gilles

8:06 PM

@Jez And that's not going to happen.

Plus how do you tag questions that have answers in a different language?

Jez

localization interface is needed. you'd only tag the language of the question.

frankly, most of the time, if the question is asked in french, the answers will be in french

Borror0

The fact is that there are two audiences you can appeal to: anglos who are learning French and francos who are looking to improve their French. Note that there I'm not talking about native speakers of the language; I'm talking about people who have a decent grasp of the language, enough to browse a site in that language.

Jez

@Borror0 And I think you can have both living on the same site and you think you can't.

Gilles

@Jez The problem is that not every expert on the French language is like @AlainPannetier

There are people who know their stuff but won't venture anywhere near English.

Jez

@Gilles I understand, but I think the solution is not to have a french-only site; it's to have functionality to allow them to get a french interface, and filter out the non-french questions

Gilles

8:10 PM

Obviously there aren't many here now, most of them wouldn't be interested in Area 51 or Stack Exchange in the first place

Borror0

Those audience are mutually exclusive, in the fact. While it may seem they are not, this is fallacious thinking. A monolingual francophones that drops by and sees half of the content in English will simply leave the site. It's clearly saying the site isn't for him. Similarly, if an anglophone with only a so-so grasp of French drops by a site which is 50% in French, he'll get the impression the site isn't for him.

Jez

there are also many who would like to browse the french and the english questions

Gilles

@Borror0 Except that if the site is about French, it makes sense to discuss it in French

Jez

really? my grasp of french is so-so and the site seems ideal

in fact there has been a lot of activity so far in the beta.

it seems to have been going really well

Borror0

So, you got to pick which is your primary audience. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's one way or the other. And if the site is about French, all the experience with Stack Exchange has taught us that French is the better choice, You want the most knowledgeable community possible.

Alain Pannetier

8:12 PM

Hi guys...
Having a go at it again hm...
Can I jump in?

Borror0

@Jez That's a non-sequitur. You have built a site for users like you, and the users who applied are mostly users like you (wanting to improve their French, fluent in English). You then use those users' appreciate of the current site to determine that it's the most successful recipe possible. You can't do that. It may work for now, but that isn't the same as saying it's the most successful way to build a language SE site.

Alain Pannetier

Did any of the proponents of the French-only proposal come up with a decisive argument proving why it is beneficial for French and detrimental to the German and Japanese sister comunities?

Or is it another example of the "French exception"?

Borror0

I voiced my disapproval long before German, Japanese or French even existed (apparently, they were already in commitment)

Alain Pannetier

If japanese were only in Japanese I could not be part of it.

Do you know Japanese?

Borror0

22

Q: Should we do anything about the huge language mess on Area51?

There's a long list of languages proposal on Area51, varying from an all encompassing language site to a focus one language site like the successful English Language & Usage. When I say they vary, I do mean that. As I just said, there's a site to contain all the languages question, whether...

discussion area51 stackexchange-2.0 languages

@AlainPannetier I speak neither German nor Japanese, which is why I didn't go protest on their respective metas. I did protest on MSO and Area51, to no avail because Area51 is a failed site.

Alain Pannetier

8:19 PM

I speak enough German to avoid starving if dropped there but all my contributions in german.SE are in English. Yet I'm hugely interested in what happens in that forum. It is of high interest for would-be linguists such as myself.

Should the leaders of german.SE decide to enforce a German only policy, they would lock me out in a matter of days.

Is this what we want for FLU? put off everybody and lock everybody non native out?

Gilles

@AlainPannetier What is detrimental to the German and Japanese communities?

@AlainPannetier No. I'm not a native English speaker, and yet I participate actively in many English-language sites, and even a little in English Language and Usage

Alain Pannetier

Leaving non native speakers (resp German and Japanese) out is detrimental. Do you question this?

Gilles

@AlainPannetier If we put off people who can't write a comprehensible sentence or two in French, I don't mind.

@AlainPannetier No, but I don't see what this has to do with the debate at hand.

Borror0

@AlainPannetier That's not an accurate portrayal of what would happen. I suspect we,d see our deal of broken French, and also a non-negligible amount of fluent French speakers whose mother tongue is not French. Our policy for French isn't all that different from Stack Overflow's abut English use, and SO is doing quite well.

Alain Pannetier

These people can participate in English and I have no doubt that they will always opt for the easiest alternative. Let's keep it that way.

@Borror0 Come on. SO is the locomotive of the whole SE network. Most participants in the language sites are still techies.

Borror0

8:30 PM

Allowing English has great costs: a smaller audience, less experts, and more beginner questions. I fail to see what we gain in exchange.

Alain Pannetier

"Allowing English has great costs: a smaller audience, less experts, and more beginner questions". Completely unconvincing. But please feel free to fork a proposal.

Jez

More beginner questions: yes, I'm OK with that

Fewer experts: debatable; would they come to StackExchange even on a french-only site? it has an English interface.

Alain Pannetier

How come "The number of participants in French would be higher than the number of participants in French + The number of participants in English"?

Borror0

@AlainPannetier I did this. It was closed as a duplicate when this site was a proposal with less than 10 followers. If you have a problem with my actions, feel free to complain to SEI. Maybe they'll see their current actions are not optimal. In the meantime, I'm going to act in the most rational way possible: improving the site that was a duplicate of my proposal.

@Jez Then you fail at Stack Exchange 101.

Alain Pannetier

If there were less than 10 followers then that should give you a clue about how reliable your assumption that "French only entails more participants" is.

Jez

8:36 PM

@Borror0 no; i've always said that StackOverflow made it big by allowing lots of (relatively mediocre) questions.

If it had insisted on 'expert only', it would be dead by now.

Jeff may have forgotten that but I havent

Gilles

@AlainPannetier Who cares about the number of participants? Theoretical Computer Science has a vastly smaller number of participants than Programmers. Yet the first has very high quality, the other not.

Borror0

@AlainPannetier Here's a thought experiment: imagine that, when Stack Exchange launched, it allowed questions in Korean, Japanese, English, and Mandarin. How would you, as a someone who only speak one of those language, enjoy this site?

Alain Pannetier

There are plenty of ways to filter out sub-par questions.

@Gilles The number of participants was not my argument.

Gilles

@Jez Theoretical Computer Science insists on experts-only, and it's working very well. Programmers is not working well, and they're trying to fix this by insiting on more expertise.

Jez

@Gilles They can afford to say "experts only" now because they have a massive user base from Stack Overflow.

If I created an experts-only site on anything, it would fail, because I don't have a massive userbase

Alain Pannetier

8:38 PM

If we compose good answers and questions we set the standard and have the moral high ground when filtering out sub-par questions and answers.

Gilles

@Jez They've been expert-only from the start

Borror0

@AlainPannetier You're telling this to a Skeptics mod. I know that. I also know that it's a lot of work, won't scale well unless the community concurs (which isn't easy), and non-optimal and undesirable.

Jez

@Gilles They've had the userbase and advertising of StackOverflow from the start.

Gilles

Math Overflow didn't have an SO user base at all, and they're also working well.

Jez

@Gilles interesting site. I didn't know about it.

Borror0

8:40 PM

@Jez Of course. Similarly, SO had the userbase of Joel and Jeff's blog. That's hardly news that publicity helps you get critical mass. It's also irrelevant here. SEN has a good amount of users fluent in French.

Alain Pannetier

Guys, you're like me. You sometimes read forums in French. Does that not make a depressing reading? Sloppy spelling if any. Very ordinary ideas. Schoolyard atmosphere...
Is this what you want???

Borror0

You do know that SE sites are moderated?

Alain Pannetier

Of course I do... How does that make a difference in our FLU special case?

Gilles

@AlainPannetier Forums in English make me equally depressed

Borror0

On Skeptics, we have a referenced-required policy. I don't see how we couldn't require a "write in a reasonably high quality French" - especially since f it's a site whose attraction is improving your French. I suspect most people who want to help others with their French will want to write in a good French anyhow.

As for the juvenile attitude, that's mod-worthy action.

Alain Pannetier

8:46 PM

That's not so bad. Although I agree the quality has degraded recently. But
1/ I'd say this argument goes my way: this is a monolingual site.
2/ after betas, the quality of enthusiasts is diluted.

Jez

@Borror0 I don't see how we couldn't require it either. I also don't see a good reason why we'd want to.

Borror0

@Gilles In my experience, the francosphere is way worse. Generally, people will make an effort to not write in txt speak on English site. The same isn't true whenever I go on a French site. Usually, the quality is depressing.

Alain Pannetier

Basically we disagree on details.
- you want to raise the bar by keeping English NS out.

- I want to raise the bar by keeping them in.

Gilles

@AlainPannetier I wasn't talking about EL&U, I was talking about forums

Borror0

@AlainPannetier Wrong. I want to raise the bar by requiring a minimal level of French to ask questions here.

Jez

8:47 PM

@Borror0 "References-required" is an arbitrary policy enacted to try and keep the quality of questions to a certain level. "English-and-French-questions-only" is equally an arbitrary policy that could be enacted for the same reason.

Alain Pannetier

@Borror0 there's a difference between "requiring a certain level of French" and "allowing zero level of English".

Borror0

@AlainPannetier If you can't ask your question in at least broken French, your French is usually pretty bad (in which case your question likely too basic) or you're not willing to put enough effort into your question.

Gilles

@AlainPannetier I see the connection between requiring a certain level of French and keeping the quality high: the entry bar is a minimum level of expertise in the subject

@AlainPannetier I don't see the connection between requiring a minimum level of English and keeping the quality high

Borror0

Neither do I.

Alain Pannetier

@Borror0 Can you state clearly what level of English you deem acceptable?

As far as I know English is part of "culture générale" and a good indicator of it.

Borror0

8:52 PM

@AlainPannetier None. Ask your question in French. If we can somewhat understand it, and your question isn't general reference, I see no problem with it. Plus, if we correct that person's post, he/she will learn from her mistakes.

Stakc Overflow operates similarly w/r/t non-fluent users. If their question is good, but the phrasing is lacking, someone will improve the question and the asker will get an answer.

Gilles

@Borror0 I'm ok with askers posting in a language other than French, but with a high threshold. That's why I proposed that non-French questions would be closed, but could reopen if they sufficiently interested someone that they'd take the trouble to translate it.

Borror0

What I'm proposing isn't revolutionary at all.

Gilles

First-year students of French asking their homework questions... not.

Alain Pannetier

@Borror0 You're fighting a lost battle then. Not a chance.

Borror0

@AlainPannetier I'm fighting the right battle. I don't care if I lose. What matters is that I'm right. Worse case scenario, I'll get to say "I told you so."

Alain Pannetier

8:56 PM

The vast majority of subscribers have committed on the assumption that FLU would be as bilingual as GLU and JLU. Jeff will never let you have this way...

Gilles

@Borror0 I'm well past my quote of I-told-you-so on Area 51 wrongness

Borror0

Good point. Me too.

Alain Pannetier

Guys are there no monolingual French linguistic Q&A around?

Gilles

@AlainPannetier That's a weird argument. How many meta discussions have you been in on SE? Appeal to Jeff is usually the last resort of the incompetent/troll (which you're not).

Jez

@Borror0 @Gilles One fundamental point is that English is the lingua franca of the StackExchange Network, and many of its users. Sure, some have a good grasp of French, but there is going to be a skewed number who have a good grasp of English instead. This is an important fact.

2

Alain Pannetier

8:58 PM

I'm not appealing to Jeff. And thx for the troll. Just asking you to be realistic.

This backs my remark that you are fighting a lost battle.

Gilles

@Jez Again, there is no such thing as “the lingua franca of the StackExchange Network”!

Borror0

@Jez No, this is an irrelevant fact. If this site doesn't have enough experts, then it should die. If this site has enough experts on the French language, then making this French-only won't change that.

In either case, what happens is the preferable outcome.

Jez

@Borror0 It could have enough experts even if it allows English and French, though.

Alain Pannetier

@Gilles There are some monolingual proposal such as Persian or Spanish SO clones but as far as this site is concerned, the assumption (sound in my view) is bilingual at least.

Gilles

@AlainPannetier Where do you get this assumption from?

Alain Pannetier

9:01 PM

You could be right if all the subscribers were French NS.

Very unlikely.

Jez

@AlainPannetier what is NS?

native speakers?

Alain Pannetier

Yes.

RegDwight's famous pineapple

Borror0

@Jez Of course, but it would appeal to a large pool of appropriately-knowledgeable users if it was in French. I have many francophile friends who would love this site, but won't enjoy it if English is the primary language.

Alain Pannetier

@Borror0 This is misleading. Nobody's suggesting the preeminence of English over French.

Jez

@Borror0 does 50/50 count as the primary language?

Alain Pannetier

9:05 PM

And not the other way round either.

Borror0

Fair. If English is as prevalent as it is now.

Alain Pannetier

@Borror0 I think that having a large percentage of English post is the indication that we are reaching out to non NS.

Gilles

@Borror0 At the moment, it's about 50/50 for questions, with a slight prevalence for English in the answers

Alain Pannetier

Would that be something to be worried about?

Jez

@Gilles I count the top bunch of questions as 10 French, 8 English.

Alain Pannetier

9:08 PM

Guys, please rest assured that I hold you both in high esteem (especially Gilles as a user of Unix.SE) but I'll have to leave it there for tonight in a minute. In the meantime please don't nurture bitter feelings.

Jez

@Gilles I don't see a single English answer to a French question.

@Gilles If I were a french purist I could use the site and just ignore the English. I could also refuse to use it because there is some English there. C'est la vie.

Borror0

Let me answer a more interesting question: if we are attracting more users with a poor grasp of French (sub IRL1, for example), then it suggests that the quality of questions is similarly low. And that would be a problem.

Jez

tags are in french too

I must also leave it there. Night ;-)

Gilles

@AlainPannetier I'm drawing more on my experience on other sites. Unix is a remarkably low-drama site

Borror0

@Jez It's not about purism. It's about welcoming design. If you are monolingual, you won't feel like you fit in on a bilingual site. That goes for all monolinguals.

Alain Pannetier

9:16 PM

All, I'll call it a day. TTL.

Gilles

9:31 PM

@Evpok C'est différent, il ne me viendrait pas à l'idée de taguer une question sur comment prononcer « plus » avec phonetique.

@Evpok Flamme, non. Par contre, si tu n'est pas d'accord, tu écris un commentaire poli (comme tu l'as fait). Cela dit je ne comprends toujours pas où tu vois une erreur.

@Evpok Possible. Dans un siècle ou deux je répondrai peut-être différemment. En attendant, je ne vais pas recommander à quelqu'un de ne pas mettre le « ne » dans un article de journal, une copie d'examen, une lettre d'embauche, ...

Je trouve quand même ça curieux que tu me reproches d'être trop prescriptif alors que j'utilise le TLF comme référence

F'x

@Gilles moi non plus, je ne vois pas le problème. Suite au message de Evpok sur le chat, j'ai relu ta réponse 2 fois, puis son commentaire, mais je ne vois rien qui cloche…

Borror0

@Gilles You misread the "temps" question. I have edited to make that clearer, but lack the reputation to make it automatic.

It's about etymology, not definition.

F'x

@Borror0 edit approved :)

just come here and ask, until tomorrow when more people can chime in

Borror0

I was about to check if anyone had the rep to approve

Gilles

@Borror0 Yes, and?

Borror0

9:44 PM

Don't remember what is the threshold during private beta

Gilles

> Old French temps and its variants, from Latin tempus

@Borror0 french.stackexchange.com/privileges

Borror0

@Gilles I feel Stack Exchange can provide us with a better answer than that (in terms of length and detail).

Not just "yes" but "how"

Gilles

@Borror0 You want me to copypaste the section from a bigger dictionary?

Borror0

@Gilles Sure.

Gilles

Ok, I admit that TLF's etymology section isn't very readable

Borror0

9:47 PM

lol

Gilles

But I'm not inclined to go through much effort to help someone who hasn't done basic homework

If @AlainPannetier wants to write a dissertation on the etymology of the word, then fine

The problem is, this kind of dedication can't be maintained for long

Whereas the level of questions can only go down, so it's especially important to insist on expert questions now

french.stackexchange.com/questions/how-to-ask-beta

Borror0

I'm not disagreeing. I improved the question to be clearer, not because I approved of it.

Gilles

Tiens @F'x tu n'as pas édité le titre ?

En tout cas merci, c'est comme ça que j'espérais que les choses se passeraient (évidemment je ne pouvais pas faire la traduction moi-même, si on n'était pas en beta privée j'aurais posté sous un nouveau compte)

F'x

@Gilles un oubli de ma part

sur ces questions de langue du site, je n'ai pas trop le temps de discuter avec vous, désolé

les 2 principes qui me semblent importants sont :

1. be liberal in what you accept, conservative in what you do

2. pragmatisme: un site existant et marchant pas mal vaut mieux qu'un site idéal mais dont l'infrastructure ne sera pas mise en place par SE (ou sur laquelle SE mettra un veto)

ce qui veut dire, pour moi: allons-y comme ça, faisons évoluer le site, quitte à influencer ensuite si la mayonnaise ne prend pas (mais je pense qu'elle peut prendre comme ça, avec une bonne dose de #1)

Gilles

@Fx Ça c'est un truc d'informaticien :) Quand il s'agit de modérer un forum, ça ne marche pas si bien.

Si tu veux une explication physique : le niveau du site n'ext pas une fonction extensive du niveau des questions

Une mauvaise question a un coût.

F'x

10:01 PM

@Gilles je regarde les questions existantes, et la qualité ne me semble pas corrélée à la langue

y'a des questions en français que je juge mauvaises, et de bonnes questions en anglais

Gilles

@Fx Faire évoluer le site, c'est complètement illusoire.

F'x

@Gilles EL&U le vit en ce moment (changement assez radical de la philosophie de fermer les questions), ça a un peu clashé mais ça va bien se faire

sinon, avant de partir, j'ai essayé de régler la question sur le temps avec une réponse simple : la double signification vient directement du latin :)

ce qui, je suis désolé, n'était pas clair d'après le TLF (et c'est le wiktionary anglais sur le mot Latin qui m'a donné la réponse, confirmée par le Gaffiot)

et sur ce, je vous souhaite une bonne nuit (ou autre) !

Gilles

@Fx Je suis d'accord que les sections sur l'étymologie du TLF sont dures à suivre, mais l'info y est

Dans la partie histoire : B. 1. a) Ca 1160 (Eneas, éd. J.-J. Salverda de Grave, 191: tone et pluet Vante et esclaire Molt comanca lait tens a faire); b) 1536 (R. DE COLLERYE, op. cit., p. 264: Après pluye vient le beau temps);

Dans la partie étymologie : Du lat. tempus, temporis « période, moment où quelque chose se produit; temps considéré dans la durée; période particulière en référence à l'histoire, la vie d'une personne...; moment propice pour quelque chose; circonstances, conditions particulières [sens auquel se rattache le sens B, cf. anni tempora, caeli tempus, v. OLD]

F'x

@Gilles non, ça n'y est pas (ou c'est erroné), puisque le latin tempus (-oris) qui est mentionné (le temps qui passe) est différent de tempus (tempi), pour le temps qu'il fait

cela dit, oui, on est d'accord, c'est super dur à lire

Gilles

10:16 PM

@Fx Ça y est, j'ai copié-collé. Par contre, si c'est faux, c'est effectivement embêtant.

F'x

@Gilles mais bon, je ne suis pas assez en forme pour continuer le latin ce soir

cette fois-ci, c'est la bonne. ciao !

Gilles

@F'x two separated declension → two separate declensions

et etymologic → etymology aussi

F'x

et je suis même trop crevé pour l'anglais :)

cela dit, je mettrai etymological

merci pour les corrections

Louhike

11:05 PM

Je reçois mon Grévisse Mardi !

Evpok

11:18 PM

@Gilles pour explication, ce qui m'a donné envie de flamer c'est le "exclusivement langage parlé", c'est un peu mon berserk button personnel. J'essaie de me raisonner, mais c'est dur :p J'ai aussi tendance à contredire la grammaire traditionnelle dès que je peux, c'est un genre de déformation professionnelle, après avoir entendu mes profs de linguistique taper sur les grammairiens pendant des années.

@Gilles Après j'ai effectivement appris en syntaxe que personne n'est venu n'est pas une phrase négative, mais c'est vraiment un point de détail et c'est plus une convention qu'autre chose. Donc, pas de soucis, ta réponse est tout à fait correcte (du point de vue qui intéresse le site, on est pas sur SX.linguistcs), c'est juste un peu de dérive de ma part.

Gilles

11:32 PM

@Evpok merci, c'est intéressant d'avoir un point de vue de linguiste

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