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Matthew McLauchlin The sharp-eyed metrophile may have noticed a few discrepancies among metro station names in our fair city. Université-de-Montréal's nameplates are missing their hyphens; Assomption's nameplate has an extra L'. Some old maps have names we've never seen: du Parc, de l'Acadie, Collège, Savane, Église. What's going on? In a word: grammar. We already knew French has more grammar rules than you can shake a stick at. But did you know it has rules for metro station names too? Not only that, but Quebec has a body, the Commission de la toponymie, whose solemn duty it is to make sure the public bodies of the province follow these rules. And some years ago, when they noticed that a number of metro station names in Montreal did not follow these rules, they came calling, and the Great Preposition Affair began. To start at the beginning, a French place name or toponym has three parts: the generic (générique), a common noun that indicates the type of place; the specific (spécifique), a proper noun that is the place's actual name; and whatever articulation (charnière) is needed to bind the two together. This last is usually the preposition de (sometimes à), with or without an article (du, de la, des). The generic, being a common noun, is not capitalized; the specific is capitalized and, in Canadian usage, hyphenated.1 Some examples:
Take note of the last two. You'll see that an entire name (generic plus specific) can become the specific for another name. Thus, l'île du Prince-Édouard is an island named "Prince-Édouard," while la province de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard is a province named "Île-du-Prince-Édouard." What does this mean for us? First lesson for naming stations: a station's entire usual name is a specific, as though it had been preceded by "station" (no articulation). And that means it needs hyphens. For example:
It was fairly simple to add hyphens, and the Bureau de transport métropolitain (BTM) changed its practice fairly readily. Following the same code, it also stopped abbreviating the words "saint" and "sainte," which are supposed to be spelt out in full. The next one is where it gets sticky. Metro stations are not supposed to have any articulations before the specific. Since articulations aren't part of the specific of the street name either, that means that, technically speaking, names like Du Collège, De La Savane, L'Assomption, and De L'Église are wrong:
The articles aren't part of the specific, so they shouldn't be part of the station name: Collège, Savane. The only other option would be to use the entire name of the street as a specific, after the fashion of Place-Saint-Henri: Avenue-de-l'Église. This put the BTM in something of a bind. Although De L'Église and Du Collège are technically wrong, Église and Collège just sound dumb. Moreover, in these cases, the names would give the impression that the station is named after some church or some college, rather than after the street of that name. Finally, most people speaking informally use the articulation when referring to some streets with short names: it's at the corner of Du Parc and Des Pins. What to do? The BTM folded with regard to one existing station - (L')Assomption - and two stations then under construction - (Du) Parc and (De L')Acadie. However, they refused to change Du Collège, De La Savane, and De L'Église, much to the disapproval of various language mavens.2 Nevertheless, these names can occasionally be seen on some old maps published by the BTM. Finally, one new station in Laval appears to have a name that's up in the air: (De La) Concorde. Although the articulation is wrong, it has been said that the name may be used anyway, in order to avoid confusion with Guy-Concordia! There are three special cases: LaSalle, D'Iberville, and De Castelnau. In all three cases, the "La" or "De" is part of the person's name: Robert Cavelier de La Salle, Pierre Le Moyne D'Iberville, and Édouard De Curières De Castelnau. This is called a particule nobiliaire because it was formerly used only by aristocrats, although many common French names have one today. We note too that LaSalle is the name of a town, and towns are an exception to the rule about articles: La Tuque, La Malbaie, Le Havre...3 Finally, the pickiest of these details is illustrated by the newest station name: Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke. Where a specific is composed of two different names, they are joined by an en-dash (–), longer than a regular hyphen.4 It's not entirely clear, then, whether the names Guy-Concordia and Berri-UQAM are wrong or not. They may be correct, if the rule only applies to composed names where one of the elements has a hyphen. But if the rule is considered to apply to any composed name, they should be Guy–Concordia and Berri–UQAM. French grammar... it's not just in the classroom anymore. It's in the metro! LINKS: Commission de Toponymie. Lays it all out for you - all the rules for toponymy in Quebec. Click on "Banque de noms de lieux" for a searchable database of just about every geographic name in Quebec - cities, boroughs, regions, islands, rivers, streams, streets, bridges, practically every hill and molehill in Quebec is in here. Never misspell or mis-hyphenate another place name again! Many of the names have very interesting historical notes along with them. Check it out.
FOOTNOTES: 1. In France, these hyphens are usually not used, which is why we see Parisian metro station names such as École Vétérinaire de Maisons-Alfort and Quai de la Rapée. In Quebec, these would be École-Vétérinaire-de-Maisons-Alfort and Quai-de-la-Rapée. (back) 2. See for example: Ramat, Aurel, Le Ramat de la typographie, 2003 ed. (Montreal: Ramat, 2003), 90. (back) 3. Note that prepositions and articles in people's names do not take hyphens: rue Jean-De La Fontaine (not *Jean-De-La-Fontaine); ruelle Nick-Auf der Maur (not *Nick-Auf-der-Maur). The only station to which this is relevant is De Castelnau (not *De-Castelnau). Certain parties will also be pleased to note that the Commission's official recommendation is not to use hyphens between English and other non-French elements, such as Avenue McGill College, Côte du Beaver Hall, and not Avenue McGill-College, Côte du Beaver-Hall. (back) 4. This situation arises more frequently in the names of electoral districts, such as Lévis–Chutes-de-la-Chaudière or the former Verdun–Saint-Henri–Saint-Paul–Pointe-Saint-Charles. Again, this is something that isn't done in France: the Paris metro stations named Bobigny-Pablo Picasso and Gabriel Péri-Asnières-Gennevilliers would be Bobigny–Pablo-Picasso and Gabriel-Péri–Asnières–Gennevilliers in Quebec. (back) |