French bureaucracy operates slowly…
Over the weekend, I sent another e-mail to the unviersité de la Bourgogne, to inquire on the status of my request. Apparently, the persons who are pedagogically responsible for the two programmes whose degrees I aspire to are reviewing the documentation I sent them. No promises on when I’d be told more…
This is a question I’ve always had in ESIB too: can the word responsible be used as a noun in English? In French, it’s of course the «responsables pédagogiques», and it would be the „pädagogisch Verantwortlichen‟ in German. But it sounds all wrong in English to me.
2006-02-22 at 7.55 pm
Granted you wrote this over two weeks ago, but for your curiosity I’ll reply. To answer your question quickly, no. The word responsible is an adjective, and you did use it correctly in your post as an adjective. But the word responsibleness would be a noun. the English language is a little odd.
Jeg liker norsk mye bedre. Lyke til med problemet.
2006-02-22 at 10.51 pm
I think the noun is responsibility (often misspelled as responsability)…
2006-02-23 at 3.58 am
Indeed responsibility is another noun. Astute observation; most people (i.e. most Americans) do spell it incorrectly. Responsibleness is also a noun, albeit a seldom used one, employed primarily by the British.
2006-02-23 at 9.58 am
Indeed it does seem to be a word. One’d be hard pressed to find a real sentence where it’s used. I googled it and found tons of dictionary pages and some obscure philosophy sites… By the way, it’s in the New Oxford American Dictionary but not in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s, so I’m not sure it’s a British thing.