I'm sorry! I can't talk about grammar on a Sunday!
Some good friends keep an eye on the PowerPoint slides for speling errers and for grammar erring. It's pretty easy to misspell something or to make a grammatical error in French, which is why dictation is a national sport.
Anyway, this morning a hawk-eyed brother came happily skipping over. I have one, I have one! Wonderful, quoth I. (I can be pretty detached about it because most of the songs are already on disk, and yes, they do have spelling errors!)
Anyway, this was the phrase:
Jésus, toi la lumière qui nous éclaires,
Vérité qui nous guides et qui nous libères,
It's from Brille ô Jésus (you can guess what that is in English)
Now the chap's concern was that la lumière qui nous éclaires shouldn't have an s. Elle éclaire. Me, he and she end in e.
Aha, said I, but it is toi qui nous éclaires, and in French it conjugates with toi, not with qui...
This called for a higher authority. Well there is a French teacher in the congregation, so we appealed to her. She came. She observed. She considered. She deliberated. She delivered her verdict.
"C'est discutable." (It's debatable)
In the end we looked at the file and decided that essentially it is not a song to the light or the truth, but to the Lord, hence toi.
This lady has a very keen eye and feels strongly for the language, so I bound her with solemn promises to come and tell me of any errers she sees.
Après tout, quoth I, même si je ne change rien, j'apprends beaucoup (one puts in the ne when speaking to her)
(after all, even if I don't change anything, I learn a lot)
Anyway, this morning a hawk-eyed brother came happily skipping over. I have one, I have one! Wonderful, quoth I. (I can be pretty detached about it because most of the songs are already on disk, and yes, they do have spelling errors!)
Anyway, this was the phrase:
Jésus, toi la lumière qui nous éclaires,
Vérité qui nous guides et qui nous libères,
It's from Brille ô Jésus (you can guess what that is in English)
Now the chap's concern was that la lumière qui nous éclaires shouldn't have an s. Elle éclaire. Me, he and she end in e.
Aha, said I, but it is toi qui nous éclaires, and in French it conjugates with toi, not with qui...
This called for a higher authority. Well there is a French teacher in the congregation, so we appealed to her. She came. She observed. She considered. She deliberated. She delivered her verdict.
"C'est discutable." (It's debatable)
In the end we looked at the file and decided that essentially it is not a song to the light or the truth, but to the Lord, hence toi.
This lady has a very keen eye and feels strongly for the language, so I bound her with solemn promises to come and tell me of any errers she sees.
Après tout, quoth I, même si je ne change rien, j'apprends beaucoup (one puts in the ne when speaking to her)
(after all, even if I don't change anything, I learn a lot)
Comments
Our hymnbook leaves out the en for "la sainte église universelle" onwards. Actually that one is debatable - it could be left without the en and be interpreted as "I believe the holy church (to be) universal", as you can in English.
Anyway, it's always good to talk to another lover of grammar, and she will do me good!