De Le?

[Richard T]

In the Haute Vienne there is a village called Le Buis. Encircling the village is a cycling and walking route which meanders through woods, along footpaths and along some pretty roads.

At various points along the route there are official looking signs (albeit in a rather rustic style) each of which says "Circuit de le Buis".

Is this a rather obvious grammatical error or is there some other reason why "de" and "le" should be used instead of "du"?

Richard T

[Christine Animal]

Maybe somebody British made the signs!   [:D]

 

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

According to my (French) beloved it happens with all proper nouns. Unfortunately it also seems pretty random. My French family are called 'Le Truc' (name changed to protect the guilty!) and I've heard them refer to themselves collectively as 'Les Truc'. When it comes to possessives it would normally be 'des Le Truc'.

The logic for place names seems to be that 'Le' should just be treated as part of the name rather than as an article.

[Maricopa]

Hi all

I have a good friend who said to a neighbour he was going à Le Mans, he was immediately corrected and told he was going au Mans.

I have also watched a local program where they were au Somail not à Le Somail.  Maybe it doesn't apply to de, but it definitely seems to apply to à.[8-)]

[anniefromwales]

Random indeed. Another example that has left me scratching my head is the town of Le Treport, which is sometimes referred to in official printed literature as la ville de le Treport and sometimes as la ville du Treport.

[Cat]

Until Clair comes along with the definitive answer...

Since "Le Havre" begins with "Le", a definite article, it follows the same rules as the lowercase "le", i.e. if you were to say "I am from Le Havre", it would be "Je viens du Havre", du being a contraction of de and le; or if you were to say "I am going to go to Le Havre", similarly it would be "Je vais aller au Havre". The same rule applies for other towns, for example Le Mans. Curiously, The "de + le = du" and "à + le = au" rules don't apply to surnames, so you say "La politique de Le Pen" as opposed to "La politique du Pen".

Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Le_Havre"

[Richard T]

Using the example of Le Mans I have just googled the phrase "ville de le Mans" which returned 7,290 results whereas "ville du Mans" returned over 70,000 results. Also tried it with le Havre: "ville de le Havre" returned 22,000, "ville du Havre" 102,000.

"Du" seems to win on popularity so is "de le" some pedantic piece of old-fashioned grammar which is falling from grace?

Richard T

[allanb]

[quote user="Cat"]

The "de + le = du" and "à + le = au" rules don't apply to surnames, so you say "La politique de Le Pen" as opposed to "La politique du Pen".

Retrieved from "http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Le_Havre"

[/quote]

There is supporting evidence for this in Hanse: nouveau dictionnaire des difficultés du français moderne (a fascinating book if you like answering obscure questions).  Mr Hanse says that these contractions only happen in the names of places, not other names, and gives as examples: "Je vais au Havre"  but  "aux yeux de Le Clézio".  (Who he?)

One encouraging thing I've learned from this book is that many of the things that we (English speakers) find difficult in French are apparently also difficult for French natives.

Anyway, returning to the OP's question, it looks as though Richard T should write a strongly-worded letter to the mayor of Le Buis (who should apparently be addressed as "M. le Maire du Buis").

[Chancer]

So what about verbs?

Je vais de le faire, je viens de le faire, etc?

Also if it were "circuit du buis" would that not indicate it being a circuit of "some" (of) le buis?

[DerekJ]

You wouldn't be having a "de" in those examples would you?

[mint]

Good for "plural" places too, I think.  Our French neighbour was telling us about a nursery to buy plants near our place and I noticed he said "Allez aux Pins" and, because I knew the place was called les Pins, I twigged that he was telling me about this place.

[FairyNuff]

There's a place near us called "Les Bordes". The inhabitants live aux Bordes, and speak about the gardens, roads etc des Bordes, so that seems to fit the general rule as well.  [:D]

FairyNuff

[anniefromwales]

"Mr Hanse says that these contractions only happen in the names of places, not other names, and gives as examples: "Je vais au Havre"  but  "aux yeux de Le Clézio". "

That makes sense to me because of the Capital Letter - you wouldn't want to call him Du Clezio would you, it's not his name.

"Du seems to win on popularity so is "de le" some pedantic piece of old-fashioned grammar which is falling from grace?"

- or more probably, some illiterate piece of modern disregard for grammar rules! (oh shut up you miserable welsh pedant, wot duz it matter anyways)

[allanb]

[quote user="anniefromwales"]That makes sense to me because of the Capital Letter - you wouldn't want to call him Du Clezio would you, it's not his name.[/quote]No, it has nothing to do with the capital letter.   The name of the town is Le Havre, with a capital L.  "I know Le Havre" is je connais Le Havre; but "the port of Le Havre" is still le port du Havre.

[anniefromwales]

Sorry I didn't express that well - what I meant was that for a town when you change it to 'du' you don't put a capital letter (du Havre) and that seems perfectly OK, whereas if it was a person's name it would feel wrong to get rid of his capital letter and put 'du Clezio' but if you used a capital it would seem equally wrong. (That still isn't very clear is it, oh dear I wish I hadn't started ..)

[allanb]

I think I see what you mean.  But you're assuming that each word in a personal name should start with a capital letter, and that isn't true in French: think of Charles de Gaulle.

But you made me wonder: how do you say in French [something] of de Gaulle?  Do you repeat the "de"?

I looked it up.  According to Mr Hanse, you do indeed repeat the "de".  His example: Les Mémoires de de Gaulle.

I'm sure all of this will be very useful on your next shopping trip.  

[Richard T]

I just googled "de Le Pen" and "du Pen".

"De Le Pen" wins hands down so it seems pretty well established that for surnames that begin with "Le" the rule is "de Le" and not "du" nor "Du". So the confusion just seems to relate to place names.

Still no definitive answer though. [:(]

Richard T

[Cat]

There is obviously some genuine confusion about the place name in your first post Richard, but I think the "ville de le Havre" test you did on google might be flawed.  I tried the same thing, and the first page of results were all ones where the words "ville de le Havre" hadn't actually been written that way, but were the results of software automatically joining the words "ville de" and  "le Havre" together, without applying any logical rules. 

So a programming error perhaps?  A bit like "you have ordered one books".

[Richard T]

Cathy

The search terms need to be enclosed in quotation marks to force a search on the whole phrase and not the individual words.

Your other example of "you have ordered one books" returns no results but then google offers "Results for you have ordered one books (without quotes)" which searches for the individual words. I have to admit I've never seen that before.

Richard T

[Cat]

I realise that Richard.  I searched on "ville de le havre" quotes included in the search.

How it works (and apologies if I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here)  is that for many of the kind of websites that the above search returned, they are websites that have information on hundreds of towns, and so instead of writing each time, for each town "la ville de blah blah blah"  they programatically join words together. 

There would be two pieces of text joined together.  The first would be the part that never changes "la ville de" and the second would be the part that changes, the actual name of the town (the variable) in this case "le Havre".  The error is that they have not thought to include an IF clause (IF the town name begins with le, use du instead of de).

The "one books" example was an attempt to show another way the same problem manifests itself, as in the result of joining the following phrases together would usually be right, unless only one book had been ordered ("a number" being the variable).

"you have ordered" + "a number" + "books"

 

Is anyone still awake?  I'll shut up now [geek]

[Chancer]

[quote user="DerekJ"]You wouldn't be having a "de" in those examples would you?
[/quote]

Yes!

That is why I used them.

I have just done it, "je viens de le faire"

not "je viens le faire" or "je viens du faire"

So what (again) about verbs then?

[DerekJ]

Thanks JR.  Never knew that [:$] so that's another useful adition to my vocabulary. [B]

As to your  verb question... don't know but no doubt others will be along soon.

[Clair]

[quote user="J.R gone native"]So what about verbs?

Je vais de le faire, je viens de le faire, etc?[/quote]

This example (je viens de le faire / I have just done it) is completely different from the grammatical point discussed here.

This refers specifically to a task which all involved in the dialogue have knowledge of:

" - As-tu payé la note de de Gaulle? (Have you paid de Gaulle's bill?)

  - Oui, je viens de le faire." (I have just done it)

EDIT: "Je vais de le faire" is incorrect. It should be "Je vais le faire" (I'm going to do it).

[Richard T]

[quote user="Cat"]Is anyone still awake?  I'll shut up now [geek][/quote]

Well, I did nod off for a moment but persevered and I see what you mean. So maybe my original example of "Circuit de Le Buis" is rather less common which makes it all the more odd.

You can see it on the web site of  L'Aurence et Glane Développment  - scroll down to last item at the bottom right.

Richard T

[allanb]

There is confusion about "le" because it has two different meanings.

The question whether it should be merged with "de" to form "du", or with "à" to form "au", only arises when it's the equivalent of English "the", followed by a noun (which may be the name of a person or a place).   The answer seems to be that in this case "de le" always becomes "du" - and "à le" always becomes "au" - except when the noun is a personal name (les amis de Le Pen, j'ai écrit une lettre à Le Pen, not du Pen or au Pen.)

But when "le" means "it" or "him", generally followed by a verb, this merger never happens, e.g. -

Il a promis de le faire (he promised to do it)

Je viens de le voir (I've just seen him)

Je cherche à le trouver (I'm trying to find it - or to find him).