The noun gender thing again

No sooner had I done a posting on the gender of nouns in Spanish and French (This and that on 7/20/07) than I received an e-mail from Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate in the French presidential elections earlier this year (when she was trounced by Nicolas Sarkozy in the run-off). This e-mail was one of many that I have received from her in her series entitled La lettre de Désirs d'avenir ("The letter of Hope for the future") since I got on her e-mail list prior to the elections (the first on April 22nd and the run-off on May 6th).

This most recent e-mail from Mme. Royal was an invitation to un grand pique-nique (no translation needed) to be held on August 25th by and for the party faithful and to attract sympathizers of all sorts. She signed off Amitiés à toutes et à tous ("Friendly greetings to all (females) and to all (males).") This is just another example of how noun genders in other languages can complicate things--in English she would only have to had said "Friendly greetings to all."

This sign-off is another of the many used in written communication which I wrote about in my posting Parting is such sweet sorrow on 7/11/07.

In my May 1st posting The French presidential election (redux), just prior to the May 6th run-off, I told of the inundation of e-mails I was receiving from Mme. Royal after I had signed up on her website. In that posting I posed the question "...whoever wins, will I ever hear from Ségolène again? I don't have high expectations." Was I ever wrong--I still get her e-mails. They are no longer numbered, as they were before the run-off (the last of the numbered ones was 95).