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Re: formal prefixes

On 25/09/06 19:43, Christopher Nebel wrote:


As long as we're on the topic and have a French native present, where is the distinction between the French "Mme" and "Mlle" drawn? Is it, like English "Mrs" and "Miss", a matter of marital status, or merely of age?

(According to <http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/mademoiselle>, if my French is holding up, it's primarily a matter of age, but the "married" definition is #2, though curiously only for commoners,


Yes, that's rather curious, unless one refers to the article's source: the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française as edited in the early thirties.
That is, there must be some implicit (but at that time obvious) asumption: one is describing the language habits of *noble* people.

and I can't understand #3.

Which isn't astonishing at all, as it is frankly illegible... ;-)
I guess it must be interpreted as follows.
Once upon a time, there was a king. His brother was known as "Monsieur" (with a capitalized "M"). Monsieur's elder daughter (the "première dame *de* sang"), while not married, was known as "Mademoiselle" (with a capitalized "M" too).
That meaning was an absolute one: it was sufficient (at least at the Court) to speak about "Monsieur" or "Mademoiselle".


Hmmm... I always have liked this list. ;-)
Axel

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