Lack of proofreading is a scourge in businesses.
Emails, instant messaging... The times favor rapid and secure responses.
Employees write more and more quickly, to the point of letting some errors slip through.
Nowadays, we write a lot more than we pick up our phone: these mistakes are becoming almost daily.
And yet, writing well is essential in all professions.
An anthology of these errors that are difficult to flush out and no longer repeat.
To discover
Crosswords, Sudoku, 7 Letters... Keep your mind alert with Le Figaro Games
Also read: Should we write “event” or “event”?
“I would be grateful”
“I would be grateful for your attention to my proposal
. ”
Ding!
The sentence just written contains an error.
Can you find which one?
It is indeed becoming common to read
“I would be grateful to you”
instead of
“I would be grateful to you”
.
Now, the correct expression is not
“to be grateful”
but
“to be grateful”
(to someone for something).
The word
“grate”
comes from the Latin
“gratuum”
and means
“gratitude”
,
“recognition”
.
This expresses recognition or gratitude to a person for the thing we hope they will accomplish.
“I would be grateful to you”
literally means
“know that I will be grateful to you if you grant my request”
.
“We will provide you with the information in a timely manner”
“Did you provide the requested information to the other team?”
The use of the verb
“deliver”
here is an Anglicism.
Indeed, the expression
“to deliver an information”
exists in English.
The verb
“deliver”
has several meanings in French, including
“liberate, restore freedom”
.
It is used when we talk about goods, money, documents, and so on, which we put into someone's hands.
We
“deliver a load, a certificate, a receipt”
.
But this only applies to people and concrete objects, recalls the French Academy.
The term
“information”
does not fit into this framework.
It is better to say:
“We will provide you with the information in due time”
or
“have you informed the other team?”.
“Please accept, Madam, Sir, the expression of my distinguished greetings”
If the sentence seems well-worded, it nonetheless remains incorrect.
What should be written between
“the expression of my highest consideration”
,
“the assurance of my respectful greetings”
or even
“my distinguished greetings”
?
To find our way around, we will remember that the verb
“agréer”
, which means
“consent, approve”
, always introduces the terms
“expression”
and
“assurance”
.
Thus, we write:
“Please accept the expression of my tributes, my respects, the assurance of my consideration”
.
However,
“the expression of my distinguished greetings”
constitutes nonsense because we can only transmit the expression of a feeling, of an attitude (
“respect”
,
“tribute”
, etc.).
We can only say:
“Please accept my greetings”
.
Or:
“Please accept, Madam, Sir, the expression of my distinguished feelings”
.
Also read: A language “close to the people”: how Gabriel Attal tries to simplify political discourse
“Within thirty minutes”
“I’ll send it to you within thirty minutes.”
You push your glasses up your nose, wondering if there really is a hidden error in that sentence.
Are we a bit too picky?
Maybe.
It is true that this is not a spelling error but an oversight.
Only one letter is missing... and everything is depopulated.
In fact, you have to add the preposition
“à”
for the formula to be correct.
We will therefore write:
“I will send it to you within thirty minutes”
.
“This subject concerns me”
This sentence contains a solecism, that is to say an error in the construction of a sentence.
We also talk about syntax errors.
In fact, the word
“interpeller”
, which means
“to call by addressing quickly, to apostrophize”
, is a direct transitive verb, that is to say it is constructed with a direct object complement.
We
“call out to a passerby in the street”
,
“a student who is heckling”
,
“a minister during his press conference”
.
It cannot be used without its complement.
However, it is becoming common to find it in sentences where the noun of person, normally subject of the verb
“to question”
, is replaced by an abstract noun like
“subject”
,
“situation”
,
“misery”
, etc.
The following example is therefore not correct:
“This situation, this misery calls out to us.”
It is better to write it like this:
“This subject leads me to wonder.”
“That’s what I want to talk about.”
Here we have another typical example of solecism that should not be reproduced.
And yet, the fault is everywhere.
“Whose”
is a relative pronoun that already has the meaning of
“from whom, from what, from which”
.
Using the preposition
“of”
with
“whose”
in the same sentence amounts to unnecessary repetition.
Two choices are available to us: either we use the sentence with the relative pronoun
“que”
,
“this is what I want to talk about” , or we simply remove the preposition “de”,
“this is
what I want to talk about” ,
or we simply remove the preposition
“de” .
This is what I want to talk about
.
Also read: A British magazine makes fun of the level of English of the French
“It followed”
“The demonstrations which followed…”
This sentence is the result of general and uncorrected mimicry.
Over time, the verb
“s’ensuivre”
was in fact cut up, in compound tenses, to write
“s’ensuivre”
in three words.
Now,
“to ensue”
means
“to flow, to result”
.
If the verb
“follow”
can also be used in this sense, as in the following sentence
“it follows from this remark that”
, as illustrated by the French Academy in its section
“Dire, ne pas dire”
, such This is not the case for the pronominal form
“to follow oneself”
.
Indeed, if we take the example given again, it will be difficult to say
"It follows from this remark that..."
.
We will therefore write:
“The demonstrations which followed…”
or
“the argument which ensued”
.
"Very shortly"
“The package will arrive shortly”
,
“the train is late but it will leave shortly”
... The expression is common but it nevertheless constitutes a linguistic error.
Beneath its falsely erudite appearance, it is in reality improper.
The adverbial phrase
“sous peu”
means
“soon, in a very short time”
, recalls the French Academy.
A definition ultimately close to the adverb
“incessantly”
, one of the meanings of which is
“without delay, as soon as possible, very soon”
.
Using both terms means repeating yourself unnecessarily.
We will therefore say:
“The package should arrive shortly”
or
“it should arrive shortly”
.
“I apologize for the delay in my response”
It is customary to apologize when we are in the wrong.
But can we apologize to ourselves for our own wrongdoing?
This is yet another one of those subtleties of which our beautiful language has the secret.
However,
“I apologize”
presents all the risks of being ambiguous when it is mainly used in the third person.
As we read in Grevisse,
“I excuse myself”
means
“to present one’s reasons to exonerate oneself”
.
We must therefore ask others to apologize.
This is why it is better to say:
“Please excuse my lateness.”