[Way OT] dieresis

Hi,

I do a lot of formal writing (specifications, manuals, etc.).

And, I suspect much of my spelling, vocabulary, grammar, etc. traits have remained largely unchanged since grade school. :<

Today, as I was trying to remember a keystroke sequence for an accented character in FrameMaker, I *conciously* noticed that I still automatically spell "naive" with a dieresis.

At first, I shrugged this off as a throwback to something I learned in childhood.

But, then I started thinking about it more. In particular, the fact that I *only* use it in this word! And, have

*never* used it in other places where it "should" be used.

(of course, no one *still* uses it at all, so this is a moot point)

I can only imagine this was a peculiar trait of whichever grade school teacher first taught me the word? Of course, few of them are still breathing :> and, I suspect the only way to try to get an answer would be to ask each to spell the word (and hope their spelling practices haven't silently changed over the years).

Am I alone in these ancient practices? E.g., how do you spell the reference book(set) called encyclo... ? I've already given up trying to understand how the element Al is spelled on the other side of the pond.

Amusing to question where these practices came from! (toilet paper: over the top or under the bottom? :> )

OK, now we can get back to talking about electrocuting people...

--don

Reply to
D Yuniskis
Loading thread data ...

The diaeresis is one of my favourite neglected punctuation marks. As in co:operate, nai:ve, piezo:optic, and a host of others. I can't get them past copyeditors these days, though.

Fight the good fight. (Or possibly the food fight-it's more fun.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Yes :> My point was the realization that I have *never* used it in other places where it "should" be used ("preempt" was the word that triggered this realization -- as I had used it just moments after naive). I suspect some teacher of mine learned it that way "as a kid" and passed it on to us "as kids". And, apparently, didn't apply it consistently!

Ha! Watch out for flying peanut butter!

--don

Reply to
D Yuniskis

Hey, Phil,

got power? I sent you some stuff, should be there Wednesday.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

Hi, John,

Yeah, it came on late last night, after 48 hours or so. I was looking longingly at some nice 2 kW Honda generators that run on methane, propane, and gasoline. Fortunately we have lots of camping gear still, though using a white gas lantern in the living room was a bit strange. ;)

Thanks

Phil

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

We saved the UPS for charging cell phones.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

A CFL lamp and even a modest sized UPS will easily get you through the evening. I suspect my UPS's have seen more use "providing light" than they have "backing up computers" :-/

Reply to
D Yuniskis

Am 01.03.2010 22:58, schrieb D Yuniskis:

Oh, we like using them. Just look at my sig. :-)

--
Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Frank-Christian Krügel
Reply to
Frank-Christian Krügel

Op Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:52:31 +0100 schreef Frank-Christian Krügel :

An umlaut is technically not a diaeresis. They have different uses. My native language, however does still use real diaeresis (or diæresis?).

As in coöpereren, naïef, piezoöptisch, and a host of others. ;)

--
Gemaakt met Opera's revolutionaire e-mailprogramma:  
http://www.opera.com/mail/
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Boudewijn Dijkstra

El 01/03/2010 22:58, D Yuniskis escribió:

Naïve is the only word I spell with dieresis in English, because the first time I saw it, it had one. It was in a song by Queen.

Last week I saw the word 'nieve', and was perplexed until I got rid of my Spanish mind and tried to think as an English-speaking person. Aha, it's not 'snow', but 'naïve'...

Reply to
Ignacio G. T.

Yes, but an umlaut changes the sound of the vowel whereas a dieresis causes the vowel to be pronounced as another syllable.

For example:

pre-empt

co-operation

Not quite the same thing.

(can an umlaut be used on anything *other* than a vowel?)

Reply to
D Yuniskis

Ha! I suspect none of my teachers learned it there (since they predated Queen's formation as a band).

Reply to
D Yuniskis

Op Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:24:27 +0100 schreef D Yuniskis :

Only in heavy metal:

formatting link

--
Gemaakt met Opera's revolutionaire e-mailprogramma:  
http://www.opera.com/mail/
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Boudewijn Dijkstra

Spanish mind and tried

I've also seen my daughter's name "Niamh" spelt like that.

Bloomin Americans.

Nial

Reply to
Nial Stewart

Sorry forgot the

:-)

Reply to
Nial Stewart

Unicode makes no difference between the two cases :)

Unicode has ÿ (U+00FF) and CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ZHE WITH DIARERESIS (U+04DD); the bases of both are not vowels as far as I know...

Stefan (who usually uses a hyphen to separate ambiguous words, because it also works for other kinds of ambiguities)

Reply to
Stefan Reuther

Unicode is just a catalog of *glyphs*. They have no "meaning".

Y is often a semi-vowel. Does "ZHE" qualify as a "consonant"? The very nature of diaresis is that it applies to vowels (?).

I was asking about umlaut, though...

--don (who loves using asterisks, commas, bangs and other assorted textual decorations :> )

Reply to
D Yuniskis

It depends. We have A, ?, and ?, which have the same glyph and different meaning. And we have things like non-breaking spaces of all sorts, which have no glyph and just meaning....

My (long ago) Russian class didn't tell me anything about CYRILLIC LETTER ZHE WITH DIARERESIS, but CYRILLIC LETTER ZHE was a consonant (it's about the same sound as the 'sh' in 'English').

The only "other" umlaut I know besides the German ones is a cyrillic one, ? (CYRILLIC LETTER YO), but as far as I can tell, using the cute little dots isn't mandatory. Now does this make it more an umlaut (because the original 'e' sound changes into an 'o' sound), or more a diaeresis (because it's just a parsing aid telling you how to pronounce a word...)? :-)

Stefan

Reply to
Stefan Reuther

Do not think so - look at it this way: encyclopAEdia; that is to say, spell out the implied expression.

** BTW, from the "sound", one might think that "dieresis" is a term for a medical procedure...
Reply to
Robert Baer

I don't know about Cyrillic letters, but "y" is considered a vowel in some languages, such as Norwegian. And in Swedish, ä and ö are not considered as "a with an umlaut" and "o with an umlaut", but are individual letters in their own right, with their own place in the alphabet.

Reply to
David Brown

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.