Le mercredi 13 Décembre 2006 15:32, Chris Barker a écrit :
> Well, what a surprise, Manuel! Thanks for letting me know. "Brave"
> was one of those adjectives, I seem to remember, that had dual
> meaning depending on its postion relative to the noun -- before or
> after. But for the change to be that drastic, eh?
You're perfectly right, but firstly, in the construct you used («bien dit, mon
brave»), in fact you are shortening the full sentence which is « bien dit,
mon brave *first name here* », so that the implied noun is after the
adjective.
The other form, meaning "gallant", I think, is almost deprecated in common
use.
And secondly, it's nearly never well perceived to use a possessive "mon"
against someone else. Even « mon cher ami » can convey the exact opposite
meaning, and explicitely « mon petit ami » is outright offensive in direct
address to someone. The only accepted cases of use are for a girl talking
indirectly of her boyfriend. « Mon » is still used in the military to address
an officer as « mon *insert rank* ». This case is specific, because in the
military « mon » is shorthand for « monsieur » and as such, isn't used with a
female officer.
The difficulty in learning another language is that teaching is often based on
classic texts, and they are not very useful for those kind of meaning shifts.
--
Manuel Viet
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