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The D'Orsay does not exist.
I constantly notice the Musée d'Orsay being referred to as the D'Orsay yet the Musée du Louvre is not called the Du Louvre.
A very brief French lesson is in order. The "de" or the "d'" is dropped when referring to any name in its abbreviated version. It is the Orsay, not the D'Orsay. The prime minister Dominique de Villepin is called "Villepin" in a headline, not De Villepin. (However, if you say Mr. it is "Monsieur de Villepin.) If you want the exception that proves the rule, it is De Gaulle. It is always De Gaulle and never just Gaulle. |
Marquis du Sade = Sade?
Daphne du Maurier = Maurier? Du Pont = Pont? |
Why is Cole Porter buzzing in my head?
"It's delightful, it's delicious, it's delectable, it's delirious, It's di-lemma, it's de-limit, it's de-luxe, it's de-lovely" |
PalQ - answer :
Marquis de Sade = Sade Daphne du Maurier = Du Maurier (she was not French) Dupont (de Nemours) = Dupont |
No du'h!
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Kerouac - sincerely thanks for an edifying lesson in French!
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Thank you, Kerouac--I twitch every time I read d'(or D')Orsay. But what to do when referring to a hotel in Nice called La Pérouse? If one just says the Pérouse, the foreshortened name sounds wrong.
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The definite article -- La in this case -- is always correct to include.
With proper names, drop the aristocratic "particule" -- the lower case "de" -- when using the name without a Christian name, the title Monsieur or other title. Honore de Balzac = Balzac; Guy de Maupassant = Maupassant. De Gaulle -- no lower case -- was not entitled to use the particule and his name is correctly cited as De Gaulle. Long ago, a slight acquaintance told me that there is a law in his native Belgium (which, as a monarchy, still has a titled aristocracy) that imposes fines for the adoption of the lower case when one is not entitled to it. In this case, his full name was M. de Kerckhove de Varenne van Veeren, I believe. |
Are you all trying to sound superior tonight? People throught out the world use short cuts to referring to someone or something like the French do for Henri Bernard Levy, he is BHL.
Correct someone as the post merits it and they'll pay more attention but some attitudes do not work :) |
"If you want the exception that proves the rule, it is De Gaulle."
I'll bet not one person in a hundred knows what "exception that proves the rule" actually means. Hint: it is a usage of the word <i>proves</i> that does not imply verification. |
Prove as in test?
Think of "prova" (test) in Italian. Hence the (likely -- I'm guessing) cognates: Probation, probe, provisional, improvise, probate, probable |
Whoopdedoo.
From now on, whevenever anybody says they stayed "at Agli Alboretti" in Venice I'll be sure to jump all over them. And if they dare call me a doofus, I'll correct them: it's just all "fuss" without the "du." |
Yup.
A good rule has <i>no exceptions</i>, because if it's good, all cases are covered by it. Hence, "it is the exception which puts the rule to the test." |
But I do have one question: why is it <i>The Museum of <u>the</u> Louvre</i>, but <i>The Museum of Orsay</i> (and not <i>de l'Orsay</i>)?
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It always sounds strange to me when I hear people refer to the Del Coronado in San Diego as the "Del". The "Of The Hotel". What an absurd name! But as Cigalechanta said before, shortened names happen!
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Because the name comes from the quai d'Orsay and the old Palais d'Orsay, torched in the Commune of 1871, whose site it now occupies.
But whether Orsay was a family name or a place I cannot say. There WAS, as I recall, a Comte d'Orsay, the lover of the infamous Lady Blessington, who befriended Thackeray. I think the illicit pair, who were generally insolvent, lived in some splendour in London in the 1840s. (How the hell did I remember that? -- I haven't studied nor read Thackeray in 35 years) |
Here is an interesting story of the Grimod du Fort family and how they received the title of Comte d'Orsay Orsay..
the eighteenth century, the family of Grimod du Fort bought the land and received the title of comte d'Orsay. In 1957, largely due to the influence of ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orsay |
Please omit the extra orsay..
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Thanks for the French lesson. Unfortunately it was written in English not French.
In English one does not drop a lead character with an apostrophe. The word is treated as a whole. When a word is written as "d'Orsay" in a foreign language it is kept as such in English. One does not drop the "O" in front of "O'Leary" or "Tam O'Shanter" when their name is as such. That's why the Musée du Louvre is call the "Louvre." It's a whole word as is "d'Orsay" when it's written. |
Anybody who wants to ask a taxi driver to go to the D'Orsay is certainly entitled to sound ignorant if he wants to -- or not, just as I learned to call that northwestern chain of department stores the "Bon" instead of the "Bon Marché" in order not to sound ignorant in Seattle.
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I agree with Kerouac - saying "the D'Orsay" just sounds daft to my ears.
I think it must be something that's more common in the US, as I've never heard anyone in the UK referring to the museum in that way. Incidentally, in French it's never shortened - people always refer to it as the Musée d'Orsay. If you referred to "Orsay" in French, people would assume you were talking about the town in the Ile de France region. |
That's OK, Kerouac..or should it have been <b>de</b>Kerouac????
being pedantic can make you temporarily lose site of things...even ones as large as a museum. |
I am sorry to have offended anyone. Please feel free to visit Montemate, St. Germanne and the Champ Eliyse all you want.
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Intrepid...
Being called a pedant, or pedantic, is considered insulting. ...Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgments of one another... Respect of others, respect of other languages and respect for oneself precludes insults. You obviously can benefit from additional educational refinements. Why does a core group in the U.S. keep up with the push to remain mediocre, regaling in their ignominy, when they have an entire world to investigate and treasure? Inferiority complexes about certain languages and countries does not give one the added benefit of insult. |
kerouac...a pleasure reading your clarifications, in spite of the ever present cowboy mentality that hovers always about these threads, virtually intent on nailing down their unfortunate insecurities.
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I'll admit to several things, although being ignorant is not one of them. Being born and raised in the US and not having had a formal class in the French language I had no idea that I was pronouncing it incorrectly. People mispronounce words of foreign origins all the time. I think if the intentions are good, it should be overlooked. I personally said d'Orsay several times in Paris and was never laughed at. I try my best to use the native language of the country I am in and always assume that grammatical errors are being made constantly.
Oh well, at least I tried. |
Kerouac:
What about Valerie Giscard d'Estaing (sp?) would they have called him "Estaing" - actually i believe they called with Giscard in the headlines? Or maybe Giscard d'Estaing was his last name? |
kerouac, the "Bon" no longer exists! C'est La vie!
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et je pense, est-ce qu'il y a les noms De La en place de Du - comme de la Villepin or are all such names masqueline - forming the Du from de + le?
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PalQ, Giscard d'Estaing is a special case for other reasons. First of all, Giscard d'Estaing is indeed the complete official last name. But he (the former president) has been called Giscard by the newspapers and everybody else right from the start, because Giscard all by itself is the real family name. Giscard's father "purchased" the "d'Estaing" at some time in the past (I don't know how this is/was done) to have an aura of imaginary nobility. Since everybody knows this, they have been laughing at the family ever since. It probably takes at least 150 years for everybody to forget and to think that the name is authentic.
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thanks - guess i had heard that and forgot it - funny he acted like a blueblood as well i think, or had the reputation of being aloof - de Gaulle, did he justifiably use the De or was it Ersatz like Giscard?
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"De la" is also in a lot of names :
Jean de la Fontaine is called "La Fontaine". Georges de la Tour is listed in the dictionary at "La Tour" and the chemist Antoine Laurent de Lavoisier is "Lavoisier". |
Unless one is well schooled in all languages and never misspeaks or misuses prepositions when referring to names or places in India, China, Nigeria, Indonesia, etc., or even just Hungary, Portugal,and Finland, perhaps it would be prudent not to get overly upset about the ignorance of those persons not conversant with the intricacies of any given language.
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In the grand schemes of things, the use of D'Orsay is not relevant, but just a pimple on the a$$ of the world. I appreciate that the use was inappropriate but who cares.
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Thanks kerouac, always a pleasure to learn these things, wanting to pronounce site names properly seems something to aspire to, if the opportunity presents itself.
Michel, d'Ontario |
As the great French philosopher Homer Simpson puts it, "d'Oh!"
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The Brits have been mispronouncing French for centuries (i.e. "Fill-it", "Clare-it", enunciating the silent "h" or "t" in French words as in the composer "Beez-it", "au Juice", etc.). I love listening to books on tape with British narrators. They take cruel delight in murdering the French language.
If calling it "the D'Orsy" ticks off the Frenchies, I'm all for it. |
Good to know. I don't know that I've ever said or written d'Orsay (or D'Orsay). But, it's good to know that no one butches any other language. ;) English is particularly well guarded here in Chicago.
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thanks everyone for making me laugh.
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