egafd.com

= Silvia Riti.

If I could just clarify something about cast information:
"Hot Frequence 2002, Dir. Walter Ego (plays Femme de m?nage)"

Femme de menage is NOT the name of a character (like Angela, Lisa, or Anne) but a profession or a role a character plays (sailor, plumber, dentist, doctor, etc) in this case a "housekeeper" or "housewife".
So the notation would be better understood if it were to be "femme de manage" or "a femme de menage"...

I wish it were possible to go back and re-edit your own posts in this forum (SIGH!!!).
A "femme de menage" is a housekeeper, maid, female servant, NOT a housewife (menagere).

I don't see anything wrong with 'femme de m?nage'; until you
pointed out the possibilty of ambiguity I suppose I had rather
assumed that most of those visiting the database would have
sufficient knowledge of the basics of major European languages
for it not to be misleading. I doubt many users would have
assumed that it was the given name of a character, rather than
the role itself....
...IMO if it had been substituted with, say, 'housekeeper', some
flavour of the original would have been lost, but to be honest I'm
pretty lukewarm either way. I have no idea if egafd's 'style-guide'
[assuming there is such a thing!] has anything to say on the
subject; I can imagine, though, the hoops that would have to
be jumped through to get, say, some of the longer and more
esoteric German compound-nouns rendered into intelligible
English without employing at least two clauses and a semicolon!!

I'm still waiting hopefully for 'ch?telaine' to pop up in the database
as a role-description; we could have great fun with that one- there
is of course no direct English translation beyond something like
'female custodian of a ch?teau' or 'wife of the lord of a ch?teau
or castle', which is why it is usually rendered in English simply as
the italicised [and de-accented] French; or, with tongue slightly in
cheek and in somewhat d?class?e fashion, as.... 'housekeeper' [img]http://www.egafd.com/forum/smileys/grin.gif[/img]
Even the italicisation of such borrowings now seems, sadly, to be
falling into disuse [img]http://www.egafd.com/forum/smileys/tears.gif[/img].....
I nearly choked on my breakfast-egg yesterday at the sight of the
'Times', which certainly knows better, rendering coup de gr?ce
not only without the circumflex [which one can forgive] but without
the italics [img]http://www.egafd.com/forum/smileys/swear.gif[/img].
A stern email [img]http://www.egafd.com/forum/smileys/rant.gif[/img] was forthwith despatched, demanding the
responsible sub-editor's immediate resignation and the publication
of a complete and wholly and genuinely contrite front-page apology [img]http://www.egafd.com/forum/smileys/grin.gif[/img]

I would conclude a lot of the people frequenting this forum or accessing the EGAFD database may not have a good command of French.
I only raised the point as "Femme" was written with the "F" in capital letters and some may assume it is the name of a character in the movie.
If you would have seen "Butler", would you quickly assume the actor's name in the movie was "Butler" or that he was simply "a butler"???

Len801 wrote:
> I would conclude a lot of the people frequenting this forum or
> accessing the EGAFD database may not have a good command of
> French.
Good command isn't necessary; merely an acquaintance.

> If you would have seen "Butler", would you quickly assume the
> actor's name in the movie was "Butler" or that he was simply "a
> butler"???
I wouldn't assume anything until I'd analysed the context.
And maybe not even then [img]http://www.egafd.com/forum/smileys/grin.gif[/img]

JJ, several years ago the large company I was working for decided to provide language courses to its employees to better their French language skills to communicate with its clients. While all of us had a fairly good "acquaintance" of the language, one of the students one day asked the male professor if his wife was a "femme de menage". It was obvious to manyof us of us he meant if she was a housewife, meaning tending to the house with their very young children. The professor was shocked beyond belief that the student was inferring his wife was just a maid/servant, and his relationship with that student were never quite the same...

A simple but unfortunate linguistic misunderstanding, which a
person with more intelligence and better mannners would have
laughed at; anyone who would take serious offence at such seems
to me foolish beyond belief.
And why shouldn't a Professor be married to a maid-servant? Is
there something inherently infra dig. about such a union?
The barely-veiled snobbery in the Prof's implication appals me....

I do not wish to whip this horse to death JJ, and I do not wish to make comments that some may regard as being bigoted or racial, but I ask you how many countries do you know that have a government unit that is set up to protect their language and rabidly resist/reject any foreign words in their vocabulary???
When you understand this, you may have a better understanding of the embarassment that student had to endure in trying to apologize for a innocent and seemingly innocuous faux pas.
'Nuff said.

I really think that whenever a role is referred to in describing what character an actress/actor plays, it should be in small letters to avoid ambiguity for a name of a character.

I assume you mean l'Acad?mie fran?aise. As a native English
speaker, on the other hand, I celebrate the diversity and
haphazardly headlong evolution of my mother tongue, while deploring
the occasional solecism along the way. As you say, 'nuff said.

"I really think that whenever a role is referred to in describing what
character an actress/actor plays, it should be in small letters to
avoid ambiguity for a name of a character."
As I said earlier, I hold no strong opinion either way.