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Groupe Francophone

ucrdem

(15,720 posts)

1. It gets a lot of mileage.

Reply to Recursion (Original post)

Wed Sep 17, 2014, 10:13 PM

Sep 2014

Rabelais uses it 30 times in his Prologue de l’Auteur at the beginning of Pantagruel, first published in Lyons in 1530, and at the beginning of that, his publisher uses it to advertise his establishment:

On les vend à Lyon en la maison
de Claude nourry, dict le Prince
pres nostre dame de Confort.

http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Pantagruel/%C3%89dition_Nourry,_1530

Rabelais might not be the best measure of the state of French letters, playful coiner of louche neoligisms that he was, but on seems to have landed on the langue well before him, probably in the company of y and en.

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(Sorry, this is in English): "on" as a subject [View all] Recursion Sep 2014 OP

It gets a lot of mileage. ucrdem Sep 2014 #1

p.s. the genius of on ucrdem Sep 2014 #2

Re: misspelling. mylye2222 Sep 2014 #3

mais oui, c'est vrai . . . merci mon amie! ucrdem Sep 2014 #4

Nice rundown here: ucrdem Sep 2014 #5