feu in "feu votre père"

On 1/14/2024 1:16 PM, Christian Weisgerber wrote:

On 2024-01-12, Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:
 

Not the same question, I know, but I've always found the word order for
"feu" ("late") in French to be odd. Where I would say "your late
father" they say "feu votre père".

 That is indeed very odd.
(I wasn't even aware of this until now.)
 The English use of "late" in this context is highly idiomatic, too.
 

Does the equivalent of feu/late in other languages behave like that?

 Not in German, where we use unremarkable past participles as
adjectives for this purpose:
    Ihr verstorbener Vater
   also: verblichener, verschiedener, von uns gegangener
 

To go to your actual question, I think the usual expression in English
would be "the soon-to-be ex-president" rather than "the soon
ex-president". Naked "soon" sounds odd to me.

 It's possible that naked "soon", to the degree that it is acceptable
for some speakers, is a clipping of "soon-to-be".
 

  feu in "feu votre père"
          where else would the [feu]  go?
_____________________  Didn't HenryV say  "happy few" ?
King Henry V does indeed say "we happy few" in his famous Saint Crispin's Day speech  from William Shakespeare's play  "Henry V".
The word feu in the phrase "feu votre père" is an adjective that means "late" or "deceased". It is used to refer to someone who has died.
           The word feu is derived from the Latin word felix, which means "happy" or "fortunate". This may seem like an odd connection, but it is thought that the word felix was originally used to describe someone who had died a good death, and that it later came to be used more generally to refer to anyone who had died.
          The use of feu before a noun to indicate that the person referred to is deceased is a common feature of French. For example, you might say "feu le président" to refer to the late president. This usage is similar to the English use of the word "the late" before a name.
Here are some examples of how the word feu is used in French:
Le feu Président de la République (The late President of the Republic)
Ma feue grand-mère (My late grandmother)
Feu mon ami (My late friend)