Re: Une Question

Douglas Koller, Latin & French wrote:

> This question came up today in French class, to which I had to reply,
> "I have no idea." I then posed it to the native speaker here in
> school, to which she replied, "Aucune idée." So maybe someone here
> knows.
>
> How do you handle a quote within a quote in French? In other words,
> *punctuation-wise*, what do you do with a sentence like:
>
> When our teacher told us, "Caesar said, 'Veni, vidi, vici,'" I was
> utterly flabbergasted.
I disagree with what I've read here. Even Christophe seems to have forgotten
his natlang because what he wrote is ungrammatical; at least, it's not a
sentence.

French has 2 sets of quotation marks. The well-known « military stripes »
mostly found only in books/prints and the “double quotes” for the everyday
use although most of french keyboard users think that "this" is right way to
quote.

U+00AB = « (<<)
U+00BB = » (>>)

U+201C = “ (``)    chr(147) in win-1252
U+201D = ” ('')    chr(148) in win-1252

(Unicode rules! If you can't read the chars, it's your fault. Change your
mail client!)  ;-)

Whatever... And the “double quotes” are used to quote inside a « military
stripes quotation » if needed. According to the rules of typography I've
learnt a long time ago, your sentence must look like:

Lorsque notre professeur nous a dit « César a dit : “Veni, vidi, vici.” »,
j'ai été complètement époustouflé.

When our teacher told us « Caesar said : “Veni, vidi, vici.” », I was
utterly  flabbergasted.

-------------------
(Without quotes inside quotes)

Lorsque notre professeur nous a dit _que_ César _avait dit_ : “Veni, vidi,
vici. », j'ai été complètement époustouflé.

(Note the change in tense for a future French class.  ;-)

When our teacher told us _that_ Caesar said « Veni, vidi, vici. », I was
utterly flabbergasted.

-------------------
(With a long dash and indentations as in a novel)

[Paragraphe en cours] Notre professeur nous dit :
	-- César a dit « Veni, vidi, vici. »
	J'en fus profondément ébahi. [Paragraphe suivant]

(Le passé simple est généralement le temps de la narration des livres, rôle
échéant au passé composé à l'oral. The one who tells me what "échéant" is
wins my eternal admiration.  ;-)

[Current paragraph] Our teacher told us :
	-- Caesar said « Veni, vidi, vici. »
	I was utterly flabbergasted. [Following paragraph]
-------------------

Need I to remember you that French isn't a conlang?  ;-)

vi-kaçtólu soe, [vi:^ka.CtOlu soe] (Until soon,)

================
Remi Villatel
maxilys@tele2.fr
================