User talk:Langrel

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Voir dire
Hello, I think there may be some confusion about something on this page. 'Voir dire' never existed as such in French, it was probably created by English users from a Latin etymology and translated roughly in old French (with an error, as 'voir' NEVER got the sense of 'to see' in French : we AlWAYS differenciated between 'voir' : Latin videre, to see and 'voire', Latin vera : the truth). That's what THE reference for French etymology dictionary says anyway. If you want to justify a French etymology, then please take a serious reference, NOT online British dictionary, which cannnot be on par with the reference for French etymology dictionary. 79.82.12.246 (talk) 05:07, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll respond here since it looks like your user page is for an unassigned IP address. You are looking at the etymology for voir [to see]. As you have noted yourself, that is an entirely different, etymologically unrelated, word from Anglo-Norman French voir [truth], despite the coincidence in spelling. Also, you cannot dismiss the reference as an unserious "online British dictionary" as if it were just some suspect website. The link takes you to citations from three different, authoritative, real-world etymological dictionaries. Langrel (talk) 22:01, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
 * (Yeah, I know, I don't often connect to my English account). In which case, it would be better to specify that it was Anglo-Norman French, and NOT French in the strict sense of the word... As for the "serious" reference comment... I'm pretty sure we won't be able to see eye to eye on that one. I personally never would contradict one of the oldest English dictionary with online French dictionaries, even though they were 3 and all said the same thing (seeing as how they say "exactly" the same thing, on the contrary, I would be more distrusting, as they more likely only copied each other without checking any source...) 79.82.12.246 (talk) 10:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, the advantage that the English-language etymologies have is that they are examining the English-language phrase voir dire (derived from Old French voir), not a totally unrelated Modern French word which only coincidentally has a similar spelling. Langrel (talk) 17:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * ...an etymology dictionary doesn't examine only modern language - pretty much the contrary, otherwise it wouldn't be an 'etymology' dictionary. And 'unrelated modern word' : I don't agree either. The words "voir" and "voire" already existed when the Latin expression was translated by the Anglo-Norman, and in my book, what they did was an error. They should have taken "voire" instead of "voir". Thing is, the "e" isn't pronounced in French, and they probably didn't know how to write it, only knowing how to pronounce it... 79.82.12.246 (talk) 18:40, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Re-reading your comments, you seem to be laboring under the notion that English speakers created Anglo-Norman by translating Latin into French. This is probably the source of your confusion. Langrel (talk) 23:56, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Not at all. Anglo-Norman came from English and French, both language also coming from Latin (more so in the case of French than English). But in the case of this expression, "voir dire", as it never existed in French (or "voire dire") then yes, I'm assuming that the Anglo-Roman translated it into [Anglo-Roman] French from the Latin without any true "French" input. 79.82.12.172 (talk) 09:56, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. Langrel (talk) 17:42, 23 October 2008 (UTC)