Dictionary of the French Academy presented to President Macron

The full ninth edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française has been presented to France's President Macron.

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The full ninth edition of the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française was formally presented to President Macron this afternoon in the plush surroundings of the 17th century Collège des Quatre-Nations on the left bank of the Seine.

This is where the 40 wise men and women of the French Academy – so-called immortels (immortals) chosen for their contributions to French language and literature – have met since the body was first created by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635.

Their task at the start was to “give certain rules to our language, to render it pure and eloquent” – to which end they set about writing their first dictionary.

However, the job has proved so slow – the first book was not produced until 1694 and today it takes more than a year to get through a single letter of the alphabet – that the relevance of the enterprise is increasingly in question.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly03ve799go

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