C'était surtout Louis XIV qui l'était, mais...

Huitres: I have to apologize because you weren't that wrong after all. I found "departir" in my le Petit Larousse Illustre '95 (had to dig it out) and the word is in there! as in "s'en aller". The funny thing is that the dictionary says it's ancient francais/old french! which really surprises me because I'm only 34 (that's still young right?!) :-) and have always heard it used in the way I mentioned earlier. Looks like it can be used in the manner you mentioned. I also found it my "le nouveau bescherelle/l'art de conjuger/dictionnaire de 12000 verbes", the 1980 edition. But in there, it specifically says "departir de". Unfortunately it doesn't give a sentence as an example, only how to conjugate it.
p.s.: the only thing my sister and I can figure is that our parents spoke damn proper french! :-)

De Gaulle avait raison?

Mais bien sûr;;)

En attendant que Chirac le dise aussi,...

Grimmy,


Thanks. I've been using "uncorrect" for eons, and nobody ever corrected me...

Caribtraveler,

First, saying "je quitte pour paris" isn't "casual french".There might be some exceptions (there are always some), but people don't say that. The fact the equivalent might be casual english and commonly used in english has no bearing on it.

Second : here are definition sof "departir" :

1 : séparer (to sort out)
2: distribuer (to distribute)
3: *se* departir : abandonner, renoncer à (to renounce to something)

As you can see, none refers to the fact of leaving. By the way, reading the thread again, Michael already gave the definitions of "departir", which anyway is a very rarely used verb. I would like to see the definitions in your dictionnary stating that "departir" means "to leave".

Finally, "depart" is a noun which means "departure" or "start", not a verb. So, you would say "le départ du train est a 8 h." but absolutely never "le train départ à 8 h.". It would be as correct in french as "I'm departuring" is in english.

clairobscur: i don't want to argue with you but there's no reason for me to make this up. i clearly stated in my previous post that it's in le petit larousse illustre, the 1995 edition (and even the 2001 edition). you're absolutely welcome to buy one. This is what it says under the following word:
-Depart [de l'ancien francais departir, s'en aller].
yes there's a second departir in that same dictionary with the definitions that you gave.
and yes people do say "je quitte pour paris" in every day speech...at least my generation does. maybe you don't, and that's fine...but don't make that kind of blanket statement because that's wrong. i do, my friends do, the original poster and his or her friends do.
but i can tell you for a fact that you're WRONG on departir. i'll take le petit larousse over your opinion...but whatever.
we'll agree to disagree.

and just to clarify at the beginning of le petit larousse, there's an explanation of all the terms used in it....and:
ancien francais: mot qui n'est ni vieux ni vieilli mais qui designe une realite aujourd'hui disparue ou devenue rare.
and if you don't get that, it means the word is old and either doesn't get used or it rarely gets used.

so...now just accept it and move on.

Alors, on va boire du pastis..

et on chante Les Gitanes..

On chante Les Gitanes? Je pense qu'on fume Les Gitanes.

Et on danse sur quel pont ?

J'ai apprecie' ce jeu Kismetchimera

Sur le Pont d'Avignon, bien sur!

Avec Grand-mère et...

"Les Gitanes" c'est une chanson tres tres veille..
Les mots sont..Ou viens tu Gitane
..je viens de la Bohemes.....etc..,
Conneissez Les Compagnions de La Chansons?
C'est leur chanson..

Ah, les chansons de Charles Trenet!

J'aime bien Trenet chanson :La Mer..

"La Mer" est magnifique!