# FR: vous êtes invité-e / invité·e / invité(e) - typographie de l'écriture inclusive



## be dav

What is the difference between using the following three ways of writing "Vous êtes invité" to a recipient of a formal document that might be a man or a woman? 

Vous êtes invité-e

Vous êtes invité·e

Vous êtes invité(e)

Do these different ways of writing have different connotations at all? Which one would be correct in a formal document?

I do not want to make it plural (Vous êtes invités); the context of the document requires that it be singular.

Merci beaucoup!


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## Maître Capello

If you really want to use a gender inclusive language, best practice is to use center dots (_invité·e_). However, I personally find that writing style clunky. I avoid it like the plague. I would use a gender neutral style. For example:

_Nous avons l'honneur de vous convier à…_


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## LARSAY

on official docs, the French Administration writes "invité*(e)*", more visible than your other 2 options


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## olivier68

Yes, but there is a trend to switch towards the center dot style.


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## Locape

It might depend on the age of the people invited or the kind of event, for some trendy event with young adults, the gender inclusive language might fit better.


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## Le Gallois bilingue

Maître Capello said:


> If you really want to use a gender inclusive language, best practice is to use center dots (_invité·e_).


I am not clear how invité.e is gender inclusive, and how invité(e) is not.


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## Nem'o

Le Gallois,

Both are, but I think the dots are more practical to be entirely gender inclusive, everywhere. I'm thinking about words like _ambassadeur·rice·s._
It could work with brackets, but it would probably be less easy to read: _ambassadeur(rice)s._
It's just the impression I have, nothing official. But I agree with Maître Capello that the gender neutral style is preferable when possible.


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## Le Gallois bilingue

Thanks for that but I still fail to see how the dots are gender inclusive. On a practical note where do I go on my keyboard/icon dashboard to find the “dot” - the best I can do is invité.e.


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## Nem'o

Well, most people use that dot . too. I would use that one (the example I gave was copy/paste), as the "point médian" is made with a specific keyboard combination depending on whether you're on a Mac, a PC, etc. It would seem it's Alt + Shift + F on mine.
As for your first question, I'll let other people reply to that as I'm not sure what to think of that. _Vaste débat_.


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## Welsh_Sion

Le Gallois bilingue said:


> On a practical note where do I go on my keyboard/icon dashboard to find the “dot” - the best I can do is invité.e.



Compatriot,

This exists in Special Characters in Word. Or you can do this,

To insert an ASCII character, press and hold down ALT while typing the character code. For example, to insert the degree (º) symbol, press and hold down ALT while typing 0176 on the numeric keypad.

*You must use the numeric keypad to type the numbers*, and not the keyboard. Make sure that the NUM LOCK key is on if your keyboard requires it to type numbers on the numeric keypad.

NOTE - The ASCII character to use in this case with ALT is 00B7.

More details here:  Insert ASCII or Unicode Latin-based symbols and characters - Office Support (microsoft.com)


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## Maître Capello

Le Gallois bilingue said:


> I am not clear how invité.e is gender inclusive, and how invité(e) is not.


I didn't mean _invité(e)_ was not gender inclusive. All three suggested solutions are [_invité-e_, _invité·e_, _invité(e)_]. 



Le Gallois bilingue said:


> I still fail to see how the dots are gender inclusive.


The center dot works just the same as the hyphen except it is less conspicuous. "Gender inclusive" means both genders (here: _invité_ & _invitée_) are specified.

+++


Welsh_Sion said:


> Or you can do this


See our sticky. 

 For the center dot, the key combination is Alt+0183 (Windows OS).


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## Le Gallois bilingue

Maître Capello said:


> If you really want to use a gender inclusive language, best practice is to use center dots (_invité·e_).


Why “best practice”? How are “the dots” superior to parentheses?


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## Maître Capello

The dots are less conspicuous and put the feminine on an equal footing with the masculine whereas the parentheses may suggest the feminine is "parenthetical", thus on a "lower" level.


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## Hildy1

On my Mac, as I just discovered thanks to this thread, the centre dot is option-shift-9 .


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