French pronoun pointers

Having taught French as a second language for many years, I feel the need to make a few corrections in Kristian Gravenor’s column, more precisely on his analysis of the “on” pronoun in French [“Land hogs, nous and tonic water,” Kristian Perspective, Oct. 27]. I wouldn’t want your readers to be confused by something that is, all things considered, fairly easy to grasp.

Firstly, “on” has absolutely nothing to do with passive voice, which can be defined as “a sentence where the subject is not doing the action”—for example: He was arrested by the policeman. A sentence with “on” is as active as can be.

Second, it is very rarely used to mean “one” or “someone,” except when the sentence clearly implies that we don’t know who did the action (“someone stole my car” could be translated as, “on m’a volé ma voiture” or “quelqu’un a volé ma voiture”). But the bottom line is, 99 per cent of the time, people use it to mean “nous.” It’s as simple as that: “on” equals “nous.” “Nous allons au restaurant” equals “on va au restaurant.” The first one is more formal, but there’s absolutely no difference in meaning. Yes, I know, you conjugate it in the third person, it’s odd. But that’s the joy of Latin languages, isn’t it?

» J.F. Verreault

Not all hats on deck

I read with much interest your “Where are they now?” segment about Ivan Doroschuk [“No hat needed,” Oct. 20]. The one thing that struck me is that both Ivan and the journalist who contacted him, Chris Barry, seemed to have completely forgotten about Men Without Hats’ sorry attempt at a comeback with 2003’s No Hats Beyond This Point. So, contrary to what he stated in the interview, Ivan did not deliver his last album in 1996 with the solo effort The Spell.

» R. Pinard

More Montreal memories

Kudos to Kristian Gravenor for his “Twenty years of evolution” piece [Kristian Perspective, Oct. 20]. It brought back long-lost souvenirs, including some he left out.

Who could forget Karl’s shoes at St-Laurent and Rachel, with its overflowing towers of merchandise? I once penetrated the maze of footwear to witness Karl serving a client. After saying, “You want black? I’ll give you black,” he slowly wobbled with the shoes into the backstore, where the sound of spray paint was soon to be heard.

And then there was la Sandwicherie next to the Spectrum. And the Forum! And jazz at le Grand Café and l’Air du Temps. And the old Club Soda and $3.25 lunch specials and Rear Garde, sole competitor to the Mirror of yore.

Speaking of which, whatever happened to “The Straight Dope” and “Life in Hell” columns? What’s next, “Real-sorry, Free Will Astrology”?

» Nicolas Marand

Hooray for Sasha

[Re: ‘‘20 years on the streets,’’ Sasha [Oct. 20]” Happy 20th Anniversary. I think Sasha’s column is consistently great—she’s a funny, raunchy, straight-up writer, intimate and matter-of-fact at the same time. Even when I don’t have time to read the Mirror, I always search to see if her column’s there before I toss the paper. And finally a confession: I borrowed a lot of her attitude for the central character of a novel I wrote called Realia, published a few years back. So thanks again to Sasha for years of wonderful writing. She’s terrific.

» Will Aitken

Sasha’s Oct. 20 column was very frank and soul-baring. While she may not win any awards for it, she must be thanked for talking about verboten topics in an intelligent and street-smart manner for all these years.

Decadence is despised by conservatives and is blamed by right-wingers all the time for the downfall of society. But extreme puritanism and religious fervour are recipes for misery too—just look at Quebec under Maurice Duplessis and the Middle East. There must be room for both decadence and spirituality in an open society, and puritans must not be allowed to forget that.

» Manish Patwari

International Keanu mania!

I like to thanks for you wrote this article [“Peeved Reeves,” Oct. 27]. But as you can see I am oversea person and English was not my mother language. So, that is not ganna easy to read it to me.

Your writing release me a lot doubt about Mr. Reeves. Thank you Matthew Hays to what you did! Take care and cheers! With my best regards,

» Linda, Taiwan

Hello! You have any Keanu address? We wish to congratulate it on Christmas and New Year. Successes,

» Saida, Russia

I’m his cousin, I’m in Victoria and due to Keanu’s and my shared childhood in Australia, I have applied for refugee status. I have been scouted out by journalists in the past, but now I’m ready to speak. I’m trying to contact Sam, his father, for his original statement. Can you help?

» Samantha, Australia

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