Tricky
A couple of tricky fellows for you today – and ones that are often misspelled into the bargain. It’s two-for-one day at Word du Jour!
First up is one thing we can thank the artistes Bobby Brown and Britney Spears for (and if there are any others, it can’t be a very long list) their singing of “My Prerogative” brought the correct spelling to a wider audience. Prerogative is a word which is quite often misspelled on account of that strange R in between the P and the E. We can thank those crazy Romans for the strange spelling – it comes from the Latin prærogativa, originally the group of 100 voters who would be given the right to vote first in elections. The word came to be used in 17th century feudal times (via Old French) to mean a right or privilege bestowed upon a person or entity, a right which may or may not be in concurrence with common law. In case you were unaware, The Queen of England by default owns all the unmarked swans in the UK – an example of something known as royal prerogative. More often than not these days (as in the songs of Brown and Spears) it means a right to behave or carry yourself in the manner in which you see fit.
Next – mnemonic. This is pronounced nem-on-ik, as the leading M is silent. This spelling is down to the Greeks. Mnemonic comes from mnemonikos, meaning “pertaining to memory”. A mnemonic is simply an aid to memory. The human mind cannot always remember things that well (OK, this human mind anyway) so having an aid to remembering can be a great help. Numbers cause many problems, so a mnemonic will often help. They can take the form of acronyms such as KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), rhymes or easy-to-remember phrases – probably the most famous of which is Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, a way to remember the notes on treble stave lines in music (EGBDF). Here are some you may find useful:
An easy way to remember the value of pi to six decimal places is to make a sentence, the words of which have the corresponding number of letters to the number you’re trying to remember. The phrase “how I wish I could calculate pi” will help you remember that pi is 3.141592 – easy eh?
Roman numerals often stump people (except us Times crossword fiends, for whom knowing the values is a must). Next time you’re watching a film and the credits tell you it was made in MCMLXIII, you could use this rhyme to help you figure it out:
M’s “mille” (or 1000 said)
D’s half (500 – quickly read!)
C’s just a 100 (century!)
and L is half again – 50!
So all that’s left is X and V
(or 10 and 5) – and I – easy!
Once mastered, you’d know straight away when the film was made (no, I’m not going to tell you!)
The last one is a mnemonic which my French tutor tried repeatedly to jam into my learning-resistant anglophone brain – a useful trick for remembering French irregular verbs. In case you don’t know, French verbs normally take the auxiliary verb avoir (to have) to form a compound verb for the perfect tense – j’ai mangé (I ate), elle a dansé (she danced) and so on. Irregular verbs take être (to be) as their auxiliary and luckily there are not that many of them. An example: je suis arrivé (I have arrived) is irregular, and translates literally into English as “I am arrived”. So just remember Dr (&) Mrs Van Der Trampp and you’ll be fine. Excluding the ampersand, these letters spell out the initials of nearly all the French irregular verbs: devenir (to become) revenir (to come back) mourir (to die) retourner (to return) sortir (to go out) venir (to come) aller (to go) naître (to be born) descendre (to descend, bring down) entrer (to enter) rentrer (to bring in, take in) tomber (to fall) rester (to remain) arriver (to arrive, happen) monter (to mount, get into) partir (to set out) passer (to pass, spend time). This method is slightly fallible as it doesn’t include demeurer (to dwell) or décéder (to become deceased, to die) but it covers most of the usual suspects.
If this has whetted your appetite for mnemonics, have a look at this site – it has a good selection of them to help you remember many useful and some not so useful things. OK, time to go – now, where did I put my keys?
Dear God, what a laborious mnemonic for verbs taking être. I was taught it was simply to do with verbs relating to motion and place, as well as reflexive verbs (as in German).
I’m trying hard (but failing) to remember the elaborate mnemonic for Latin grammar that stuck with my mother for 50-odd years, but sadly I was never taught it at school.
I agree – but I don’t know a better way. As with any language, it’s a question of making the mistakes until it becomes natural to use them correctly. The thing with francophones is that they will tell you how to speak their language, then when you try it in real life everything is different! I prefer to learn street French, so I do most of my studying in bars and restaurants. If Mme Joad is reading this – that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it
First of all, excuse the lack of accents in this post. I don’t really have a convenient way to type them, and I’m not good at them anyway.
I agree with Autolycus – there’s a much easier way to remember the “etre” verbs than with your (no offense) totally wacky mnemonic:
There are four groups.
(1) The main group is basically verbs of motion (or lack thereof). It’s important to note that this is not types of locomotion, such as “run” or “swim” — those take “avoir”, not “etre” — but rather states of motion, such as “come” or “go” or “stay” or “ascend” or “enter”.
(2) Verbs whose spellings are dominated by the spellings of verbs from the first group – e.g. “devenir” (via “venir”) and “rentrer” (via “entrer”).
(3) Stuff like being born or dying. Which, if you think about it, is coming and going, entering and exiting, arriving and leaving. So again, it (sort of) fits the “motion” theme.
(4) Reflexive verbs. “S’appeler”, “se souvenir”, “se doucher”, “se raser”, “se blah blah blah”, they all take “etre”, not “avoir”. “Je me suis lave”, I washed myself, not “Je m’ai lave”. Neither your mnemonic nor your list cover this group.
Also note that there are plenty of verbs that can take either “avoir” or “etre”, depending on the context, including some of those on your list. For example, “passer” and “demeurer”.
When “demeurer” is used to mean “to dwell” (which is what you list it as), it takes “avoir”, NOT “etre”. “I dwelled in Italy”.
But it has another meaning: “to remain”. This is in the “motion” category (well, lack thereof), and thus takes “etre”. “I remained at home”.
When “passer” is used to mean passing in the sense of motion, for example “I passed in front of the gas station”, it takes “etre”. When it is used to mean passing in the sense of time, or passing an object, it takes “avoir”, for example “I passed time playing solitaire”; “I passed the spliff to my buddy”.
The “passer” example also shows a general way that these verbs (sometimes) take “avoir”: if they are used in a transitive manner (i.e. if they take an object). “Time” is a grammatical object in “passed time”, as is “spliff” in “passed the spliff”; hence “passed” is “j’ai passe”, NOT “je suis passe”, in those cases. Similarly, “je suis sorti hier”, i.e. “I went out yesterday”, but “j’ai sorti le chien hier”, i.e. “I took the dog out yesterday”. And lots of other cases – generally, when such a verb takes an object, it uses “avoir”, not “etre”.
Anyway, back to the four groups: Let’s look at your list, and see which groups they fall into (and again, none fall into the “reflexive” group):
(1) devenir (to become): venir-related
(2) revenir (to come back): venir-related
(3) mourir (to die): birth and death
(3) retourner (to return): motion
(4) sortir (to go out): motion
(5) venir (to come): motion
(6) aller (to go): motion
(7) naître (to be born): birth and death
(8) descendre (to descend, bring down): motion
(9) entrer (to enter): motion
(10) rentrer (to bring in, take in): entrer-related
(11) tomber (to fall): motion
(12) rester (to remain): motion (lack thereof)
(13) arriver (to arrive, happen): motion
(14) monter (to mount, get into): motion
(15) partir (to set out): motion
(16) passer (to pass, spend time): motion
(17) demeurer (to dwell): in its “to remain” meaning, motion (lack thereof)
(18) décéder (to become deceased, to die): birth and death
And there are other verbs, not on your list or in your mnemonic, that take “etre”, but the four groups cover them. Several venir-related ones – convenir, survenir, parvenir, intervenir, i.e. to suit, to happen, to reach, to intervene. I’m sure there are plenty of others, too obscure for my knowledge.