I love Eric Chevillard (see L'Autofictif in the links on the right-hand side of this blog) (well, if you can't read French, I can't help it). His daily posts are like praline chocolates, the taste of which stays with you for an hour or two and makes the world a warmer place. Today, however, this delicate and funny writer committed the unforgivable.
"Il était rare que nous entendions le son de sa voix", says his post number 1554, thus failing to use the rarer and more proper imperfect subjunctive "Il était rare que nous entendissions [...]".
This, for you English readers, is nothing, is snobbery. This, for me, is the equivalent of walking on a quiet beach at dawn, spotting a green, thin, fragile, translucent little eggshell rested there on the sand, tiny miracle laid down by the mighty hands of the tide, and deciding to stamp on it.
Lucky you are, barbarians, to be blind to this treasure, and ignorant of its annihilation.
