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