Sunday, October 31, 2004

(11:45 AM) | Adam Kotsko:

I Heart La Rochefoucauld

I hope that one day I can be the go-to guy for authors of "English for Reading" courses who need little proverbs that are simultaneously droll and illustrative of the fine points of grammar. La Rochefoucauld seems to have taken on that role in the exercise book I'm currently using, French for Reading. For example:
Nous pardonnons souvent à ceux qui nous ennuient, mais nous ne pouvons pardonner à ceux que nous ennuyons.

We often pardon those who bore us, but we cannot pardon those whom we bore.
The grammar is the gag; the medium is the message.

In all honesty, though, are there any foreign readers out there who have taken a similar course in English? Whom do they use? Oscar Wilde leaps to mind as a potential candidate, though I have yet to analyze his aphorisms in terms of grammatical illustration.

A related question: Who the hell is La Rochefoucauld?

| | Main Page

(Adam Kotsko has asserted the moral right to be identified as the author of this post.)