Re: I'm new!

En réponse à John Cowan <jcowan@...>:

> >
> > Funny, we don't have this distinction in French. We usually say: "une
> longue
> > nouvelle", or "un roman court" (the last one seems to be more often
> used than
> > the first one).
>
> Note the word order in "longue nouvelle", which makes it look like an
> idiom rather than a simple transparent phrase "long short story" (yes,
> we do say that in English sometimes no matter how stupid it sounds).
>
Well, funny but I didn't realize what word order I used there... I don't see the
difference between "une nouvelle longue" and "une longue nouvelle", except that
the second one seems nicer to pronounce (/ ynlO~gnu'vEl/ just sounds better than
/ynnuvEl'lO~g/, maybe because in the second case there are too many double
consonnants). The same reason applies to "un romant court" and "un court roman".
In fact, I would even say that "un roman court" sounds more like an idiom than
"une longue nouvelle", because I think I would use adjectives like "court" and
"long" more naturally in front of nouns than after them. Yes, as far as I can
think of it, "long" and "court" appear normally in front of nouns, so that it's
"un roman court" which is better considered as an idiom, not "une longue
nouvelle" which is only the normal way of putting the adjective "long" (besides
the pronunciation reason I gave above).

Christophe.