English Translation
Don’t point your gun at anyone.
Is quiconque more emphatic than personne?
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To reformulate the question: Is personne even allowed here?
See Je ne voudrais pas que quiconque nous voie. - #4 by yottapolyglot
There are a few ways to translate “Don’t point your gun at anyone.”, but I wouldn’t use the given translation.
“Quiconque” sounds weird/unnatural to me here, and If I had to use the expression “pointer son arme”, I would use it together with “sur”, instead of “en direction de” (even if the latter can also be used):
Ne pointe pas ton arme sur qui que ce soit. / Ne pointez pas votre arme sur qui que ce soit.
Ne pointe ton arme sur personne. / Ne pointez votre arme sur personne.
As you can see above, if you wanted to use “personne” here, you would have to drop “pas”.
More generally, with “personne”, you will see these patterns:
- “personne + ne” → OK
- “ne + personne” → OK
But not this one:
- “ne + personne + pas” → NOT OK
"Quiconque" is (very) rarely used:
-
When used as a relative pronoun, it works as (grammatical) subject in the relative clause, and means "toute personne qui"
-
When used as an indefinite pronoun, (as it is in this translation), it can typically be replaced by “personne”, “n’importe qui” or “qui que ce soit”. Which one would depend on specifics (sentence type, context).
I think this use of “quiconque” is even more rare, and was even considered “incorrect” by l’Académie française at some point.
Even today, I think some native speakers might disagree, as far as what the “correct usage” is, when it comes to “quiconque”.
Regarding the translation, another way to say pretty much the same thing would be:
Ne vise personne avec ton arme / Ne visez personne avec votre arme. (It sounds more natural to me.)
(viser = to aim)
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