"Are you called 'author', 'author', 'writer' or 'writer'?"
This question comes up frequently.
What to say to name a woman who writes?
How to call her without offending her while respecting the rules of feminization of French?
For a few years now, we have been reading everything and its opposite: here the title is feminized in one way, there in another.
And sometimes not even at all.
It is the same for the names of professions: do we say
"Madame Mayor"
,
"Madame Mayor"
,
"Madame Mistress"
...?
So many examples that can cast doubt on the way forward.
Le Figaro
offers you some insight.
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“forced”
to call Barbara Pompili
“Madam Minister”
?
Usage makes the rule
In its report on the feminization of the names of trades and functions published in 2019, the French Academy adopted the possibility of declining them in the feminine.
According to them , this
is "a natural evolution of the language"
, which has been observed since the Middle Ages.
Already at this time, we find words like
“inventor”
,
“surgeon”
or
“commander”
, as well as names of professions such as
“mayor”
,
“venderess”
and even
“singer”
or
“divineress”
.
Some have reappeared in usage, such as
"surgeon"
or
"author"
, which was used in the 16th century before being abandoned in the 19th century.
In this report, the French Academy refuses to enact rules of feminization.
It leaves it up to the speakers to choose what they prefer to say.
It is the use which makes the rule and which will therefore ultimately decide the betting rule.
The institution is content to set the limits within which these feminizations of professions and titles are envisaged.
Thus they noticed that academics were more reluctant to use
“autrice”
and favored
“auteure”
, a neologism that appeared in the 2000s in Quebec.
” READ ALSO – Writer, lawyer, investigator … when the masculine becomes feminine
“Autrice” is preferred by the French Academy
Which word therefore should we prefer between
"author"
,
"author"
or even
"author"
, as we have sometimes read?
Immortals give preference to
"author"
, whose feminization is grammatically more satisfying.
She is modeled on the words
"director"
,
"actress"
, and
"creator"
.
"Autrice"
was used until the beginning of the 17th century.
The word was condemned when the notion of feminine author appeared at this time before disappearing.
Left to choose between
“author”
or
“author”
, the immortals prefer to maintain the masculine form,
“with regard to the specific nature of the notion, as is the case for ''poet''”
.
As for
“writer”
, they note that the word
“is spreading in usage without imposing itself”
.
Le Larousse accepts
“author”
or
“author”
indiscriminately , while Le Petit Robert favors
“author”
, while specifying that we also find
“author”
in the feminine .
” READ ALSO – And the dictionary created the woman
Feminization of functions and titles
Regarding the feminization of functions, the choice is once again left to the users.
However, some rules are set.
The word
"chef"
for example, is sometimes written
"chef"
.
The institution does not prohibit this spelling because of the few occurrences of use, but recalls that it does not belong to the
“proper use of the language”
.
The sages therefore recommend saying
"a leader".
For the nouns of occupation of masculine gender, the use is to mark the feminine by the article or the adjective or the verb, keeping the same form in the masculine and in the feminine.
We will thus say
"an architect"
,
"an artist"
or
"a diplomat"
.
Regarding the names of functions, we can say
"the minister"
or
"madame le/la minister"
as well as
"the mayor of Bordeaux"
or
"madame la/le mayor of Bordeaux"
.
However, the institution refuses to impose a use.
by legislating.
Here again, it leaves the possibility of choice.
In the same way, we can use the old usage which consists in feminizing the name in a more marked way:
"mayor"
,
"mistress"
or
"poetess"
.
This
"-esse"
ending was once the feminine counterpart of words ending in a
silent
"e" .
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"Toutezetous", "celzeceux": when repetition becomes political
This is a phrasing that hits the mark.
"Hello everyone"
,
"many of us are concerned"
,
"the workers have demonstrated"
... This
"double bending"
consists of circumventing the generic masculine by declining the word under the two genders .
This
“oral means of inclusion”
is spreading like wildfire, whether at university, in the media or in politics.
It serves a desire to circumvent a formulation considered as
“gendered”
, by almost systematically declining a word in the feminine and in the masculine.
These famous
"celzeceux"
and
"toutezetous"
disgraceful, coming out all the time and in all the sentences, weigh down the subject, making it almost inaudible.
In the same way that inclusive writing unnecessarily complicates the learning of French, and constitutes a brake for children suffering from physiological handicaps such as dyslexia, this oral inclusiveness, after a few minutes of speaking, becomes unbearable.
Who would think that General de Gaulle, as some worshipers of inclusive language claim, used this process when he said
"French, French"
in the preamble of his speeches?
Masculine and feminine duplication is not the prerogative of a so-called
“inclusive”
language .
It is when this process becomes systematic that it becomes political.