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Un Ministral, Des Ministraux

(mistral.ai)
216 points veggieroll | 1 comments | 16 Oct 24 14:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.204s | source
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cmehdy ◴[16 Oct 24 15:58 UTC] No.41860640[source]▶
For anybody wondering about the title, that's a sort-of pun in French about how words get pluralized following French rules.

The quintessential example is "cheval" (horse) which becomes "chevaux" (horses), which is the rule they're following (or being cute about). Un mistral, des mistraux. Un ministral, des ministraux.

(Ironically the plural of the Mistral wind in the Larousse dictionnary would technically be Mistrals[1][2], however weird that sounds to my french ears and to the people who wrote that article perhaps!)

[1] https://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/mistral_mistr... [2] https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/mistral

replies(4): >>41861020 #>>41861047 #>>41863099 #>>41870745 #
1. kergonath ◴[17 Oct 24 15:45 UTC] No.41870745[source]▶
> Ironically the plural of the Mistral wind in the Larousse dictionnary would technically be Mistrals

This is getting off-topic, but anyway…

The Larousse definition is wrong, that’s for sure. The Tramontane comes from the West, between the Pyrenees and the Massif Central, it is not at all the same current as the Mistral.

I am not sure how prevalent “les Mistrals” is in the literature. I don’t doubt that some people wrote this, possibly for some poetic effect, but it sounds very wrong as well. Mistral is a proper noun, and it is not collective like “Alizés”. It means specifically the wind that blows along the Rhône valley, there cannot be more than one.

[edit] as other pointed out, there is the Mistral gagnant sweet, which can indeed be plural.