Can someone please help me unpack the grammar?

[mint]

I read today that

La crainte d'une seconde vague épidémie est elle bel et bien justifiée?

Why bel when crainte, vague and épidémie are all feminine?

BTW, I take that phrase of bel et bien to be roughly equivalent to our well and good.

In a case of the masculine, could one say beau et bien?

[NormanH]

I think that 'bel et bien' is a phrase in which both parts act as adverbs not as adjectives, and so  don't agree  with the noun

In English  we might say 'well and truly' 

[Weegie]

"bel et bien" is a specific idiomatic phrase which translates as "really" so in the case quoted "is it really justified?".

Doesn't conform to any specific rules of agreement.  Like all languages, plenty of phrases that don't.

[mint]

Thanks Norman and Weegie.  Really nice to have it explained. So, one more ready-go-expression and I am just waiting for the chance to use it the first time I can meet up with my friends[:D]

[Weegie]

An apposite quote from somewhere else. "You simply can't be literal when examining an idiom. They tend to make

learning a new language difficult, but they're also used in languages

all across the globe"[:)]

[mint]

Indeed, Weegie.  After all, it's a long road that has no turning?

[idun]

And I had always looked upon 'bel et bien' as just an expression, not that I usually try and go into it any deeper.

The odd times I have tried I end up not getting it, ie, in  a city we used to visit sometimes, there was a hotel, Hotel Le France.

I was told it was because Hotel was masculine, but it is always masculine so why isn't it Hotel du Ville, par example when it is always Hotel de Ville.

Please no one even try and explain, it is far toooooo complicated for my little brain![Www]

[NormanH]

In some phrases the 'de' doesn't change..

For example 'pas de'

Pas de lait

Pas de pommmes

Pas de vin

pas de sous..

'besoin de' is another one

I suspect that 'hôtel de' may be a similar case for the Mairie

Anyway 'ville' is feminine so it can give "un hôtel de la ville" when you mean a hotel in town..

[idun]

Ofcourse Ville is feminine, posted late last night and cannot for the life of me remember which example I wanted to give now.[blink]

In your examples,  they were fond of using 'plus' instead of 'pas' a lot of the time. I found that very confusing when I was getting to grips with french as 'plus' inferred that I wanted more than I was asking for. And not that they hadn't got any left.

[mint]

As you have said so many times on here, id, sometimes you just have to learn "on the hoof", make some mistakes and try to remember and not make the same ones again.

I agree with plus and plus de.  Sometimes, with plus and you do want more, you pronounce the "s".  But that does depend on whether sounding the "s" is appropriate.  Sometimes, sounding it is obligatoire, sometimes it's as you wish and sometimes it's never![:-))]

Un peu and peu de can also be tricky.  Un peu generally means a little and peu de means a few.  Vous parlez français?  Oui, un peu.  Mais, franchement, peu d'anglais parlent français.  Just an example, it is not a statement of fact so please don't go lining up to say how well you and all your friends can speak French![8-|]