GRGR: TRP's French WAS Re: Une or un (Was: Paris Visit)

[Doug Millison]

It may not be a mistake. It's been a few years since I got my degree in
French, so I checked the Petit Robert. It's quite possible that with Un
Perm' Pynchon abbreviates "un permissionnaire", a masculin noun that means
(my translation from the Petit Robert dictionary) "a soldier on leave"
("soldat en permission").  Thus, "Un Perm' " would refer to Slothrop, a
soldier on leave.  According to the Petit Robert, when used to mean
"leave" in the military sense", the feminine noun "permission" has an
abbreviation that is used in familiar speech, and that's "perme", also
feminine. (As the usage example  for this abbreviation, the Robert
delightfully offers a line from Proust:  "Le restaurant ou j'avais dine
avec Saint-Loup, un soir de perme.")

I'd say Pynchon has it right, and suggest that the French translator got it
wrong in trying to make an unwarranted correction. I have heard that the
French translation of GR is not very good, although I haven't read it
myself.  Meg?



d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n
http://www.dougmillison.com
http://www.online-journalist.com