French experts: Which is correct, the D'Orsay? or the Orsay?
 

I thought that when not using the complete name you drop the "d'," but am seeing the museum referred to more and more as "the D'Orsay." Not a big deal, but I'm wondering.

Thanks.

Neither is particularly elegant! It is better to say (the) Musée d'Orsay. Reason: the d' is a contraction of "de", which translates as "of". The "d" is never capitalised (or, more precisely, never correctly capitalised).

In a similar vein...the official name of the Louvre is the Musée du Louvre

It's wrong to refer to it as the d'Orsay, as that translates to saying "of Orsay" in English. It's like saying you want "au jus," which drives me crazy. You don't want "in the juice," you want the juice.

But Padraic is right. One should say the Musee d'Orsay.

Conversationally, people will tend to say for example:

Je vais au Louvre (the Louvre existed as a place all on its own before the museum, so this kind of makes sense).

Saying Je vais au Musee du Louvre would sound a bit strange/redundant.

By contrast, there was never a place named Orsay all on its own in Paris. It was/is either the Quai d'Orsay, the Gare d'Orsay and now the Musee d'Orsay.

So saying for example:

Je vais à l'Orsay would sound very strange.

People say "Je vais au Musée d'Orsay" -

Hope that is only slightly confusing.

-Kevin

It drives me crazy too, when people include the preposition or partitive in the formal names of things (hotels, museums, whatever). It just sounds stupid to me -- like, oh, I really want to stay at the "du Danube" hotel.

YOu refer to the Orsay museum or Danube hotel. I wouldn't expect English speakers to say "musee d'Orsay", I don't agree that people who don't know French can always pronounce French words correctly. Now I do understand that English speakers who don't know French at all don't know what to say and are anglicizing the thing to be similar to the English language in structure (anything after musee or hotel must be the name), and I do understand why people do this because they don't even understand what they are saying and don't know what to say as it's a different structure than in English.

It's an oddity: it seems acceptable to refer to the Musée du Louvre as the Louvre, as Michel_Paris suggests (even the French would not be thrown by references to "le Louvre"); but I don't feel the same can be done with the Musée d'Orsay.

I imagine it is because the building that houses the Musée do Louvre is actually named "le Louvre", whereas the building that houses the Musée d'Orsay was never named "l'Orsay".

People who type faster than I do beat me to it!

I think that in French one would say <i>le d'Orsay</i> or <i>aller au d'Orsay</i> should one choose to drop <i>musée</i>.

The French would say "je vais au musée d'Orsay" or "je vais voir une exposition à Orsay" since in this particular case there is no doubt they are not going anywhere else but a museum.

Michael wrote: "I think that in French one would say le d'Orsay or aller au d'Orsay should one choose to drop musée."

I wouldn't.

Great replies, thanks. It will be Musee d'Orsay for me.

Love au jus - "in the juice." I'm afraid I'll laugh out loud if I hear someone say it.

StCirq: Yes, one of my all time "Drives me Crazy" things is the "au jus" - I laughed when you brought it up.

However, I guess I am sympathetic, esp. when I try to speak Italian, which I hardly know, and I am sure people are cringing.

<i>une exposition à Orsay</i>

I think that the <i>d'</i> would be kept because <i>à Orsay</i> is not very comfortable, even though it would be used that way for a place like Orléans or Auch, but that would be <i>faute de mieux</i>.

If you had to, I'd go with "une exposition à l'Orsay" but, even that doesn't sound right. Sorry, but you have to say the whole thing... "une exposition au Musée d'Orsay" -

-Kevin

Big sigh :-)))

http://cooldesource.blog.lemonde.fr/...llard-a-orsay/

http://www.art-marche.com/article-13954619.html

http://www.photosapiens.com/VU-a-Orsay.html

PV,

I see it, but I can't quite figure it out.

If I said "à Orsay", to me that would be something like the town of Orsay, while "à l'Orsay" would be a building.

Je suis confondu.

Peut-être parce que le français n'est pas votre langue maternelle, qui sait? :-)

Michel_Paris, I think you are closer to being correct than you think (how's that for adding to confusion?). Orsay is a location: le quai d'Orsay; that gives some legitimacy to the phrase "à Orsay".

A little digging tells me that there actually was a building bearing the name Orsay. It was destroyed by fire during the commune of 1871. Read about it (en francais) here: http://www.insecula.com/musee/M0048.html

PV,
Je suis un anglophone Québecois, ce qui mélange un peu ma grammaire :)

à Orsay makes a certain amount of sense, given that the Quai d'Orsay is a legitimate location, but since the French are always making "la liaison" to make the language roll off the tongue more smoothly, it seems a bit bizarre to me. Aurally, it has the same effect as Les Halles or les haricots. It kind of puts a stutter into the rhythm of the language.

Does it matter the name of the train station was Gare d'Orsay or before that Palais d'Orsay?

Do people still call the Centre Pompidou Beaubourg?

I pronounce it "Dior."


Thin

I think that Orsay by itself might be used as a shortened subject noun form of Quai d'Orsay referring to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Orsay is a town, 25 km south of Paris in Vallée de Chevreuse.
Le "Quai d'Orsay" or simply "Le Quai" refers to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs just as Place Beauveau refers to the Ministry of Interior.
and
people say indifferently 'je vais voir une exposition au musée d'Orsay" or "je vais voir une expo à Orsay" because in that specific case no ambiguity is possible. If they went to an exhibition in the town of Orsay they would say "à Orsay, la ville" or "à Orsay, pas le musée".

We say à Amsterdam, à Anvers, à Auch, à Agen, à Aix (the two exceptions with towns starting with the letter "A" are "en Arles" et "en Avignon") à Eboli, à Orléans, à Oléron, à Orvieto, à Oulan Bator, à Ouagadougou etc......... I don't see what's so strange with "à Orsay".

You'd be fine saying à Orsay if you were referring to the town - towns do not take articles.

If referring to a building (Louvre, Elysée, etc) you need the article. So if you really want to leave off the Musée part then you've got to say:

Je vais à l'Orsay.

Just like:

Je vais au Louvre.

Anyway, that's my understanding... FWIW !!!

-Kevin

The problem, kevin, is that the building in which the Musée d'Orsay is housed is not named l'Orsay.

Je vais à l'Orsay.
Je vais au Louvre.
Je vais au Quai Branly.
Je vais à l'Orangerie.
Je vais au Picasso.
Je vais au Palais de Tokyo.
Je vais au Pompidou.

That's the way Parisians talk to each other. French people form the provinces would say the full name of the museum.

But to answer the original question, nobody would ever in a million years say "le d'Orsay" just as they don't say they're going to the "du Louvre."

"from" the provinces, not "form" the provinces!

So those websites that said "xxx à Orsay" are wrong. I feel better now.

I've been guilty of referring to le musee d'Orsay as the d'Orsay, and I should know better. Now, I do. Merci! EJ

I've never heard anybody say "je vais à l'Orsay".

I defer to kerouac, but also maintain that the Parisians are wrong.

"So those websites that said "xxx à Orsay" are wrong"

I'd be surprised if they were, especially Le Monde.

Contraction? Like NYT headline saying 'Renoir at Met'?

I am intrigued...

"Expo à Orsay" would be the journalistic way to say it.

A small research exercise -- Google hits:
"à Orsay": 112,000
"à l'Orsay": 551

Even allowing that the "à Orsay" score includes hits for the town, I find the difference in scores persuasive. Of something.

We (participants in this discussion) are in both Google scores, so perhaps we should subtract one from each side.

Nobody knows where the town of Orsay is anyway.

kerouac wrote: "Nobody knows where the town of Orsay is anyway."

How do the inhabitants get home, then?