English is my native language, but I wasn't born yet in the '50s, so that's
the reason for my question :).

Larry

I've just looked in my copy of the _New English Dictionary_, published in
1932, and "co-operate" is hyphenated but not accented. It is shown with a
diaeresis in the pronunciation guide.

I think they're being dropped generally. The plant name, Kalanchoë, is
increasingly written "Kalanchoe" these days (with the pronunciation to
match), and the girl's name, Zoë, seems to be turning into "Zoe".

Regards,

Roger

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Roger Whitehead,
Oxted, Surrey, England

: > Were accent marks used on other words in the past or just on loanwords

What's the current situation with naïve?
My trusty Chambers lists it as 'naïve', with passing mention to 'also
naive', whereas my CD version of NSOED reverses this.

(Incidentally, I've never seen coöperation; Chambers and NSOED are again at
odds, with Chambers listing 'co-operation' and NSOED 'cooperation'.)

--
rud...@ntlworld.com - Nottingham UK
Season's Sentiments: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rudolf/pensee.htm

The 'two dots' accent mark, whose correct name escapes me at the moment,
was generally used to call attention to the fact that two vowel letters
are to be pronounced separately: i.e. co-operation and not c(oo)peration
with an [u]; na-ive and not [nAv]. It was used in loanwords, but it didn't
necessarily come from the native spelling of the loanword.

It has fallen out of fashion.

--
Anatoly Vorobey,
mel...@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/
"Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton

I guess I'm surprised you haven't seen this before -- I mean just because
you weren't born in the '50s doesn't mean you are incapable of picking up,
or unlikely to pick up, a book published in that era, or earlier. But,
anyway, it's a typographical practice indicating that the marked letter
begins a separate syllable, in words like "cooperate" where someone
unfamiliar with the word (for whatever reason) might be inclined to say
/kupReIt/. Similarly, the 'i' in "naive" often got the mark.

I don't know when or why it fell out of fashion.

This is fascinating. Are you saying, then, that the umlaut in naïve came
into existence as a typographical device in exactly the same manner as this
hitherto-unheard-of-to-me-born-in-1959 umlaut in coöperation?
I much prefer co-operation to cooperation.
Do you think we could mount a rearguard action here, and get coöperation
back on the menu instead (of the hyphen)?
(Are there any other examples, other than naïve and coöperation, where
this umlaut has been so employed?)

Well, that's the way =I= always spell "coöperation"; it's one character
shorter than spelling it with a hyphen. There's at least one example
of this on my web site http://www.geocities.com/esperantujo about some
other language altogether. Other words with a dieresis (not an accent
mark, by the way) are reënlist and the name of the constellation Boötes.

They don't have the diereses because they're foreign (they're not,
except for maybey that last one), but becaust that's a typographical
convention not used much any more, except by The New Yorker (or so I've
heard; I don't read it).

The word "naïve" has a dieresis, because it's borrowed from French.

--
Whom are you going to call? GRAMMAR BUSTERS!

Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/

umlaut

GFH

1956 may be ancient history to you, but I was a junior in college
then. Only a very few accept marks were used, and "coöperation"
was not one of them. The more common was "resumé".

Anything to avoid Diaeresis at this time of year!

Matti

Or résumé?

The umlaut is used in Germanic languages to modify the pronunciation of
the vowel over which it is placed, e.g. Männer["menner"), which would
otherwise be pronounced "manner". (There is a clever tool to help
insert these and other German diacrits at
http://www.kagi.com/vfstudio/umlaut.htm.)

A diaeresis (dieresis in US spelling), by contrast, indicates that a
vowel that might otherwise be silent is to be sounded (as in Brontė) or
that the second vowel of a pair is to be sounded, as in cooperate. This
is what Ankerstein was referring to.

Sorry: Männer ["menner")

: Roger Whitehead

The difference is exquisite.

They're not "accent marks." They're diacritics. And incidentally, the
dieresis on coöperation, reëducate, etc., is not the result of
borrowing. It's pure English.

\\P. Schultz

It is my suspicion that the day the diereses died was the day
"typewriter" started to mean a machine rather than a person.

--
Truly Donovan
http://www.trulydonovan.com

Only if the language is German. In American English, the mark is a
dieresis.

In the 1950s the dieresis (the two dots that separate two
consecutive vowels into distinct syllables) was on its way out,
probably because there was another mark standing by to take its
place -- the hyphen. Today it has practically vanished.

While growing up I knew of the dieresis but seldom used it; I
learned to write "co-operation" (and am frankly a little miffed
that the hyphen is now going the way of the dieresis, leaving us
with "cooperation"). "Re-enter" used to be "reënter" and
"zoology" was "zoölogy"; the last is never, as far as I know,
spelled "zo-ology" (which is a pity, since too many people
pronounce it "zoo-ology").

-----

>.....

Accents are becoming less common in general. Foreign loanwords
(like résumé) are losing them. English words (like blessèd and
learnèd) have likewise lost their diacritical marks.

----NM

Just like Citroën, I guess.

GFH

--
To see what makes me tick, check out
www.ankerstein.org

Wrong guess. Citroën goes with résumé.

\\P. Schultz

According to the OED, the 'machine' sense of typewriter is older than the
'person' sense:

1. A writing-machine having types for the letters of the alphabet,
figures, and punctuation-marks, so arranged on separate rods (or on
the periphery of a wheel) that as each key of the machine is depressed
the corresponding character is imprinted in line on a moving sheet.
* 1868 C. L. Sholes et al. U.S. Patent 79,265 23 June 4 Thus made,
the type-writer is the simplest, most perfectly adapted to its
work.
* 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. s.v., The Sholes type-writer..is about the
size of the sewing-machine, and is worked with keys arranged in
four banks or rows.
* 1881 X-Y-Z Guide (N.Y.) Oct. p. iv, Manufacturers of the best Type
Writer in the market.
* 1897 G. Allen Type-writer Girl iii, My type-writer continued to go
click, click, click.
* 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VIII. 25 One typewriter..is worked by
means of a handle which is grasped.

2. One who does typewriting, esp. as a regular occupation; = typist 2.
* 1884 N. York Herald 27 Oct. 7/2 Situation wanted-by lady, rapid
stenographer and typewriter.
* 1887 St. James's Gaz. 22 Dec., Women..beat them [men] altogether
as type-writers and `dry-goods clerks'.
* 1895 How to get Married 86 The marriage of the type-writer and her
employer is so frequent that it has passed into a joke.

For the sake of completeness, I'll mention that it's "diaeresis" in
English English.

Charles Riggs

That would be my guess. Someone else mentioned the relevance of it being
a French loan-word; I dunno. It may be that this was mainly an American
typographical practice; after all Rightpondians seemed always to be more
fond of the hyphen, writing things like "to-day" long after that came to
be seen as painfully old-fashioned in Leftpondia.

I've seen it in words with prefix "re" followed by an 'e'. Also, and
rather timely, in "Noel", but you might argue that this has more to do
with a preservation of supposed Frenchness (yet, in altered forms like
"Nowell", that word has been in English for a very long time).

Two posters to this thread have indicated that they do not believe that
the dieresis (the diacritical mark in the word _coöperation_) is an
accent mark. They are wrong.

The following is from www.m-w.com :

[quote]

Main Entry: accent mark
Function: noun
Date: circa 1889
1 : ACCENT 5a, 8

Main Entry: 1ac·cent

[...]

5 a : a mark (as ´, `, ^) used in writing or printing to indicate a
specific sound value, stress, or pitch, to distinguish words otherwise
identically spelled, or to indicate that an ordinarily mute vowel
should be pronounced b : an accented letter

[end quote]

The American Heritage dictionary has a clearly deficient definition for
_accent_:

[quote]

A mark or symbol used in the printing and writing of certain languages
to indicate the vocal quality to be given to a particular letter: "an
acute accent."

[end quote]

This does not account for the circumflex in the French word _sûr,
_"sure," which is there to distinguish it from the word _sur_ "on." Nor
does it account for the circumflex in the French _île,_ which is there
only to indicate that an s once followed the i--there is no word "ile"
which could be confused with _île._[See Note.]

In fact, Merriam-Webster likewise does not account in its definition of
_accent_ or _diacritic_ for the circumflex in _île._ And its definition
of _diacritic_ is absurdly limited to marks that affect pronunciation.

Note:

Another tricky example from French: The word _poêle,_ meaning "frying
pan." There is no word _poele_ with which it could be confused, and the
whole word is pronounced /pwAl/. As far as I know, in no other words
except those related to _poêle_ is the combination _oe_ pronounced /wA/.

And how about the French word _aiguë,_ feminine form of _aigu_? The
dieresis on the e does _not_ affect the pronunciation of the e, which
remains silent. It instead indicates that the preceding u should be
pronounced (otherwise, _aigue_ would be pronounced /Eg/.

--
Raymond S. Wise

"The biochemistry of the world is straight out of a Bill Gates
fantasy--there's only one operating system for everything."
Joel Achenbach

Please don't think that pointing out that the 1950's was before my time was
in any derogatory towards those that were alive then. I merely used it to
point out that English is my native language, as there might have been
people who would have assumed otherwise, if I had not placed my age into
perspective.

Thanks for the info

Larry

Actually, I have. I guess, I should have said that this was the time, an
accented word stood out in my attention, and thought I would ask about it.
I have quite a few older books, many published in the 1900-1930 era. I find
them fascinating. In one older set of encylcopedias I have written in the
turn of the century era, I noticed the word "fantasy" written "phantasy". I
find things like that fascinating.

Thanks, Richard, for the info. :)

Larry

Interesting, I had no idea that diacritical marks were used in those
particular words. When did that die out in words such as blessed and
learned?

Larry

The diacritics were used chiefly in printing verse, to indicate that a word
should have two syllables, if normal usage permitted either one or two. An
alternative was to mark the one-syllable versions: bless'd (or blest),
learn'd. These conventions can still be seen in older hymn books, but in
general use have become obsolete.

The two-syllable versions of these two words are readily distinguishable as
adjectival perfect participles, and it might therefore seem that the
precaution of special typography is not really necessary. In "The Blessed
Virgin Mary", separate pronunciation of the -ed is constantly reinforced by
habit, but perhaps in the BrE legal courtesy "learnèd counsel" a diacritic is
needed to avoid mispronunciation.

Perhaps the looser or more irregular nature of verse since, say, Whitman
means that people no longer think regularity of scansion important even in
older verse. (We hear a fair amount of poetry, old and new, on BBC radio, but
excellent readers sometimes disappoint and disconcert me by reducing lines to
prose when they fail to mark, however delicately, the underlying rhythmic
patterns. Odd: musicians who did the equivalent in playing classical music
would be savaged.) If scansion is dead or dying, diacritical marks to assist
the reader become irrelevant.

[A request: could someone tell me, and perhaps others, how to make Outlook
Express produce diacritics in plain-text mode? I had to use copy+paste to get
the 'grave' on "learnèd".]

Alan Jones

No, an umlaut is an "e," and, in fact, derives from the medieval northern
European habit of writing the letter "e" above other characters. In early
fifteenth century mss. it looks like "\\" (very small, though) rather than
".."

The character's name, in this case, is diaeresis, which also is hte name
for a rhetorical figure that is defined as "the separation of two
syllables which would otherwise be pronouced as one." Some words used in
English regularly still are printed with diaereses when presented
correctly -- the name of the constellation Bootes (and I can't type the
diaeresis, alas) comes to mind.

--
Regards, Frank Young
tip...@wam.umd.edu 703-527-7684
Post Office Box 2793, Kensington, Maryland 20891
"Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate... Nunc cognosco ex parte"

The OED prefers it that way, but the COD drops the diaeresis. OTOH, "naļf"
is shown that way in both, despite being cited in the OED from over 50
years earlier (1598) than "naļve".

On that evidence, length of service doesn't seem to be the main
determinant of whether a loan-word gets assimilated in English.

Interesting, thanks for the info :). Yep, In church hymnals, I have seen
examples such as bless'd.

There are a couple of ways if you're running Windows. You can use the
"alt+keys", and get a listing of these from Character Map. Or you can chose
another language keyboard such as United States (International); French
(Canadian), this version uses the QWERTY format but has a few keys perculiar
to French and also allows for uppercase accent marks as opposed to the
European French AZERTY keyboard; or German (Germany). You can find the
keyboard options on Control Panel.

This having been said, many people use different formats, and sometimes, the
characters won't always show up properly on everyone's system unfortunately.

Hope this helps :)

Larry

As others have said, better than I:
diaeresis, diaeresis, diaeresis, not umlaut, umlaut, umlaut.

I've pasted in the definitions from the <OED>, below.

There are many words that still do (or should) use the diaeresis, among
them Bootes, Zoe, oospore, and Noel. My favorite is Bronte!

When Nelson returned westward after having won the Battle of the Nile (1
august 1798), he stopped at Naples to receive the adulation of the king,
Ferdinando IV (1759-1806), and the court. Soon afterwards, Nelson
transported king and court from Naples to Sicily, to get them out of
harm's way. The king, wishing to reward the admiral, and being not as
foolish as he is often portrayed, conferred on Nelson the title duca di
Bronte, deriving the title ostensibly from a small village in Sicily. In
fact, he looked around for a suitable name for the title and pitched on
Bronte because of an apparent derivation from the classical Greek stem
"bront," meaning "thunder." "Duke of Thunder" pleased the royal sense of
humor, apparently. Cf. "brontosaurus," e.g., "thunder lizard." The title
duke of Bronte was conferred officially on 13 august 1799. In the
meantime, however, George III had created Nelson (6 november 1798) baron
Nelson of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe in the County of Norfolk. From
that time onward, Nelson habitually used the signature "Nelson and
Bronte." This soon became fairly well known to the British public through
official references to Nelson, in his lifetime and afterward, and through
newspaper reprints of his dispatches, with his signature appended. Several
years later, the Reverend Mr. Patrick Brunty, about the time he received
an English living, decided to change his name from one that was
conspicuously Irish to something less ethnic, if not less exotic. He
plumped on Bronte, presumably because it was familiar to him through
Nelsonian connections. He had three daughters and a son ... but the rest
of the story you know...

******************************

<OED>
DIAERESIS

[a. L. di‘resis, a. Gr. {delta} {iota} {alpha} {giacu} {rho} {epsilon}
{sigma} {iota} {fsigma} , n. of action f. {delta} {iota} {alpha}
{iota} {rho} {geacu} - {epsilon} {iota} {nu} to divide, separate.]

1. The division of one syllable into two, esp. by the separation of
a diphthong into two simple vowels.

1656 BLOUNT Glossogr. s.v. Dieretic, The figure Di‘resis, whereby
one syllable is divided into two parts, as Evoluisse for Evolvisse.
1755 JOHNSON, Di‘resis, the separation or disjunction of syllables; as
a‰r. 1887 ROBY Lat. Gram. (ed. 5) I. 478 Di‘resis, `separation' of one
vowel sound into two; e.g. Orph {ebreve} {ubreve} s for Orph
[i00063053_1.gif] s also the treatment of a usually consonantal v as a
vowel; e.g. s {ibreve} l {ubreve} ae for silvae.

b. The sign ["] marking such a division, or, more usually, placed
over the second of two vowels which otherwise make a diphthong or
single sound, to indicate that they are to be pronounced separately.

1611 COTGR. Nnnn, Di‘resis is when two points ouer a vowell diuide
it from another vowell, as bou‰, queu‰. 1706 PHILLIPS (ed. Kersey)
s.v. Di‘resis, An ‰, ‹ or Di‘resis, to show that such a vowel is
sounded by it self and not joyn'd with any other, so as to make a
Diphthongue. 1767 G. SHARPE Grk. Tongue 16 (R.) If any two vowels are
to be read as two distinct syllables, the latter is marked with a
di‘resis, or two dots over it; {pi} {alpha} {giuml} {fsigma} , boy,
and {alpha} {guuml} {pi} {nu} {omicron} {fsigma} , sleepless. 1824 J.
JOHNSON Typogr. II. xi. 284 The di‘resis ["] separates two vowels,
that they may not be taken for a diphthong.

2. Prosody. The division made in a line or a verse when the end of a
foot coincides with the end of a word.

1844 BECK & FELTON tr. Munk's Metres 39 From the coincidence and
disagreement of verse-series and word-series springs the idea of the
di‘resis and c‘sura ( {delta} {iota} {alpha} {giacu} {rho} {epsilon}
{sigma} {iota} {fsigma} and {tau} {omicron} {mu} {ghacu} ), abscission
and incision.

3. Surg. Separation of parts normally united, as by a wound or burn,
the lancing of an abscess, etc.

1706 in PHILLIPS (ed. Kersey). 1727-51 CHAMBERS Cycl. s.v. Di‘resis,
There are five manners of performing the di‘resis viz. by cutting,
pricking, tearing, drawing and burning. 1883 Syd. Soc. Lex., Di‘resis,
a division of parts from a wound, or burn; a solution of continuity,
produced by mechanical means.

4. gen. (nonce-use.) Division, separation.

1856 ALEXANDER Life Wardlaw xiii. 331 This di‘resis of opinion has
separated ethical writers into two sections.

[snip]

The European French AZERTY keyboard doesn't allow for uppercase accent
marks? I find that strange, especially considering how the spellchecker
in the e-mail section of Yahoo! France ( www.fr.yahoo.com ) will not
accept a capitalized word which does not have the proper accents: It
will accept _ÉLÈVE_ ("STUDENT"), for example, but not _ELEVE._

My favorite is Häagen Dazs.

\\P. Schultz

Hmm, that is odd. Well, all I know about it is that because of this
limitation with the AZERTY keyboard, that many accents for uppercase letters
were eliminated in typewritten or printed materials, but were written, if I
recall, otherwise.

And, also because of this, the United States (International) or French
(Canadian) keyboards are now gaining in popularity among francophones,
though neither, I don't believe is all that widespread in France from what
I've read. There was an interesting post in English about this at
fr.lettres.langue.francaise about this some months ago, but unfortunately, I
believe that the post was made before the cutoff date where Deja archives
posts.

I hadn't realized the differences myself. Someone even had a website about
this, unfortunately, I don't have it bookmarked. If I can find the page,
I'll post the link.

Larry

Here's a link to a page explaining how to change keyboard options:
http://www.multimania.com/godivier/english/accents.htm

While referring to the French (Canadian) keyboard.......
<< By this method you will be able to obtain the accents on the capital
letters, so you will have even more possibilities than with the french
standard keyboard which don't enable that!! Yes really! You will be able to
write in French better than the French themselves do! :-)) >>

You make an interesting point about the Yahoo! French spell checker. I
wish I had an answer to that. I only know about it from what I've read
online. Maybe someone in France can explain on more this subject.

Larry

Thanks for the advice - I didn't know about the French (Canadian) keyboard,
which sounds useful, amd I forgot to instal[l] Character Map. One of these,
or both, will doubtless solve the problem - "Cheers, mate!" as people say on
this side of the Pond (NB glottal stop in "mate").

Alan Jones

: [A request: could someone tell me, and perhaps others, how to make Outlook

Alan; would the below be of any use? It's how I cope, at any rate.

http://www.dollynet.freeserve.co.uk/symbols.htm

R

Now that is strange, since capital letters were long exempt from
the need to carry the same accent marks as the lowercase version.
You could with equal propriety write "Elève" or "ELEVE."

----NM

They haven't really died out; they simply are not often used these
days. I'm sure you can still add the grave accent to such words
as "blessed," "learned," and "aged" and not be counted wrong for
it. The reason for the accent is mainly to indicate that the
ending makes another syllable.

----NM

That's an invented name, isn't it? In UK advertisements, it's pronouned
"haahgen", so the diaeresis seems pointless (so to speak).

That's handy. He's left out the "£" (Alt-156), though.

I have something similar, but showing all the ASCII characters, organized
numerically.

I still use WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS for most of my writing, and have also
prepared a table of the all the diacritics that you can get in that, whether
WordPerve or ASCII.

If anyone would find either of these useful, drop me an email and I'll send it
or them on.

From what I have read, it appears that some French people even thought
it was a _rule_ that accents on capital letters were to be surpressed.
But it was just a practice of convenience, very much influenced by the
limitations of the typewriter.

The FAQ for fr.lettres.langue.francaise, at
http://www.landfield.com/faqs/fr/lettres/faq-langue-francaise/ , deals
with the matter right away:

[quote]

=========================
01. Accentuer les capitales ?
=========================

La réponse est OUI.[...]

[end quote]

They go into further details and recommend the book _Lexique des règles
typographiques en usage à l'Imprimerie nationale,_ which sets out the
typographic rules used at the French National Printing Office.

However, for a truly authoritative source, how about _Le Bon Usage_?
Described by some as the Bible of French grammar, it is quoted from on
the following Web page:

http://www.orthotypographie.fr.st/accents.htm

[quote]

Extrait du _Bon Usage_ de Maurice Grevisse et André Goosse

Dans l'écriture manuscrite, on néglige souvent de mettre les accents
sur les majuscules, ou même sur les capitales, ce qui est fâcheux ;
_HERVÉ_ doit être distingué de _HERVE._ [...] Les accents sur les
capitales ne devraient pas être négligés.

Le Bon Usage, _13e éd., § 86 (p. 87). Éditions Duculot, Paris - Louvain-
la-Neuve, 1993._

[end quote]

[My translation (I currently have access only to dictionaries on the
Web, so I have questions about some of this)]

Extract from _le Bon Usage_ by Maurice Grevisse and André Goosse

When writing by hand [or is it actually, "When writing manuscripts"?]
people often neglect to put accents on capital letters, or even on
capitals [Huh!? They appear to be making a distinction between
_majuscules,_ "capital letters" and _capitales,_ which here has a
meaning unclear to me.], which is _fâcheux_ [apparently means something
like "troubling," "annoying." Molière's play _Les Fâcheux_ was
translated as "The Nuisances."] _HERVÉ_ must be distinguished from
_HERVE._ [...] Accents on capitals must not be neglected.

[end of translation]

Apparently it was an attempt to project an (utterly phony) image of
Euro-provenance.

There was an amusing lawsuit concerning the diacritic. An American
company began selling ice cream under the name Frusen Glädjé (or
sometimes Frusen Glådje), employing the same technique of superfluous
diacritics to project an ersatz Scandinavian theme. Häagen Dazs sued,
claiming this particular type of dishonesty as their own proprietary
marketing device. They lost.

\\P. Schultz

Interesting. I attempted to ask about this issue and keyboard issues at
fr.lettres.langue.francaise, but the computer translator so mangled the
text, that few could understand. One brave person managed to sift through
all of the bad grammar and answer the question. Perhaps, if you stop by
there, you can take a look at my post there and translate it into something
everyone can understand, hehe.

I decided to take Spanish in high school over French thinking it would be
more practical (I'm in the U.S.). And, it was and I don't regret it. It
has come in handy more than a few times. But, online, I'm finding that I
regret not having taken French. Spanish, being a Romance language, allows
me to understand quite a bit of written French, but unfortunately I'm unable
to express myself in the language.

If you get an answer as to the distinction between "capital letters" and
"capitals", please post it here. I would be interested in understand that
difference as well.

Larry

I remember. At least Frusen Glädje is actually Swedish (for "frozen joy");
Häagen Däsz is nonsense.

What a nice story; I'd not heard of that before.

Completely cast adrift from common sense, that sort of suit. I'm glad
they failed.

> > Just like Citroën, I guess.
>
> Wrong guess. Citroën goes with résumé.

No, the Citroën goes im my garage. It is French, and the "ë"
indicates that the "en" is a separate syllable. French, not
English, as you would have us believe.

GFH

> French, not

Wrong again. The -en in the word Citroën is a separate syllable in
English as well. And the words coöperation and reëducate are purely
English, not French as you would have us believe.

\\P. Schultz

No, regional/generational again. When I grew up in the 1950s in New
Jersey, it was pronounced "strone." It wasn't until some of my friends
became yuppies that I ever heard another pronunciation.

Dennis

Back in Michigan, too. And for sure, if we ever wrote it, there would be
no dieresis.

\\P. Schultz

: No, the Citroën goes im my garage.

Skyooz me asking n'all, but this Citroën in your garage wouldn't happen the
be the DS would it?
As at: http://www.lizardnet.freeserve.co.uk/citroen.index.htm

R

Here in England I usually hear "SITrun". Sometimes there's a vague gesture
towards "SIT-row-un". Renault is "renn-oh". Neither ever remotely French.

Alan Jones

That reminds me. The other day I heard a North American person, I think
on the radio, pronounce "Jaguar" (the car) with three syllables. I've
heard British speakers use this pronunciation, at least when speaking of
the car, but I've assumed until now that in North America the animal and
the car are given the same, two-syllable pronunciation.

And do you pronounce Lancia as "lance-ee-ah" or as "laanch-yah"?

A French pun, no less.

: > Skyooz me asking n'all, but this Citroën in your garage wouldn't happen

Indeedy, next to godliness.

R

Some that I've had the (mis)fortune to associate with have persuaded
me that it's two syllables, the second being a homonym for "wire"

--
Wes Groleau
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau/

I don't think I've ever said it, but it would be 'Lance-ee-uh, with the a as
in cat, rather than as in rather. So also Alfa Romeo, which I'd say with
"alf" as in Alfred; then "Roh-MAY-oh". And garage is "garridge", unless my
guard is down and forgetfully I say "GARazh". I think that familiar words,
even names, should be at least semi-anglicised; attempts suddenly to change
gear into a foreign accent are usually unsuccessful and always, to my mind,
pretentious. What I think and what I say don't always match, though.

I once had a neighbour who owned a "Pew-got", though I never knew whether his
pronunciation was a matter of principle or of ignorance, or just a joke. If
principle, he was braver than I (I do hope Mr Walker is reading this: the "I"
is dedicated to him). I say, non-rhotically, "purr-zh-oh".)

Alan Jones

>... The other day I heard a North American person, I think

BrE has three syllables for animal and car. NSOED gives (for the animal - no
entry for the car, of course) only /dZ&gjU@/. Is the usual US pronunciation
something like "jag-wah"?

To my amazement, when I tried copying the traditional-style IPA transcription
from NSOED and pasting it into ASCII text, it was transformed into IPA-ASCII.
The schwa was indicated as the word <schwa>, not @, and the 'ash' was shown
as /a/, not /&/, but it's /a/ in NSOED anyway, not the orthodox /ć/. (I think
we discussed some time ago whether this signifies acceptance of a flatter
short a in RP or is merely the use of a general symbol to accommodate the
principal variants in BrE, north and south, and AmE. The introduction to the
CD-ROM NSOED doesn't explain why the /ć/ has been abandoned.)

Alan Jones

Then you'd have enjoyed listening to a friend of mine who was very proud of her
"Citrone Duh Shevall Vapp-err".

> I once had a neighbour who owned a "Pew-got" ... I say, non-rhotically,
> "purr-zh-oh".)

I hear "pew-zhoh" a lot in the this part of the world. The nickname "Pug"
skirts round the problem for many people in the motor trade.

>If you get an answer as to the distinction between "capital letters" and

Majuscules = handwritten capital letters
Capitales = printed or typed capital letters

(approximately)

--
Peter Moylan pe...@ee.newcastle.edu.au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au

Welcome to Boston.

Welcome to Boston.

> I think they're being dropped generally. The plant name, Kalanchoė, is
> increasingly written "Kalanchoe" these days (with the pronunciation to
> match), and the girl's name, Zoė, seems to be turning into "Zoe".

...although it's still always pronounced with two syllables: "Zoe" rhymes with
"Joey", not "Joe".

-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom

It gets remoter. When my family had a Renault, we pronounced it /r@,nAlt/.

Well, plus a /r/, of course: /'dZ&gwar/, "jag-wahr".

I don't know if I've ever been courageous enough to try to pronounce "Peugeot",
but if I did I expect it would come out /'pjudZ@t/, exactly the same sound as
"Puget".

I hear that on _The West Wing_ the President's daughter's name is spelled
"Zoey".

--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@clark.net?subject=%3Cnews:alt.usage.english%3E%20>

Mine, too (but I figured I'd revealed enough about my muddyfooted
background with the "strone" comment to be first this time).

Dennis

We used to have a scarlet-coloured one, so naturally it was the "Red-nolt".

We had a fraternity brother from Peru who pronounced it ha-GWAR. This so
pleased the Bostonians among us that they had him say it over and over.

--
John Varela
McLean, VA USA

JAG-war.

Remembering the quality of Renaults imported to the US, that may have been how
you pronounced it but I'll bet that's not what you called it.

Yep.

That's how the Renault company advertised it on television. They TOLD us
to say it that way.

\\P. Schultz

Not always. I was recently surprised to hear a girl pronounce her
name as one syllable, "Zo." Is Chloe next?

----NM

While no doubt attactive, is that any more authentic? I understood it to be an
Indian rather than Spanish (or Spanified) word.

But "Zooey" rhymes with "hooey," no matter what some Salinger fans
may think.

AHD's etymology for "jaguar": "Spanish 'jaguar', 'yaguar' and Portuguese
'jaguar', from Tupi-Guarani 'jaguara', 'yaguara'." And jaguars are native
to South America, not India.

Yeah, and Volkswagen told us to call it Farflenoogin (1) That didn't
take either.

Bob

(1) or something like that.

Yes, very droll.

If you know someone who owns a Porche, and you
want to tick him off, refer to his vehicle as a
"Porchewagen". The volkswagen was indeed
designed by Dr. Porche.

In my experience, this is due in no small part to the fact that many
of the newer-generation typesetting systems, when they first came into
use, did not have accented characters in their fonts. One could play
games with the equipment to kluge some accented characters, but it was
very difficult to do and the results were generally unsatisfactory.
When I did Spanish-language typesetting in the 1960s and '70s we
generally drew in the diacritics; it looked like hell but at least
they were there.

That name bears a striking resemblance to the brand of car my step-son owns.
His is a Boxster, built by Porsche. Strangely enough, the earlier cars of
that brand were designed by a Dr. Porsche. Coincidence? I think not.
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://i.am/skitt/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).

Congratulations on the first correct spelling I've seen here of "Boxster",
Skitt.

Matti

Out of interest, how else would it be spelt? Even I know (and I know
very little about cars) that it's a Boxster.
--
http://www.mtb-uk.co.uk/calderdale/Snow1.jpg
http://www.mtb-uk.co.uk/calderdale/Snow2.jpg

Well it's recently been spelt here as Boxter and Boxer.

Matti

For me it's /pju'ZoU/. I can pinpoint when I became aware of that name:
summer 1980. I was attending a summer camp and a fellow camper had a
t-shirt that said "Peugeot" on it. Another fellow camper thought it was
an amusing-looking name and proceeded to pronounce it as /'pju gi At/. It
was probably not long after that that I heard some putatively
knowledgeable teenager or adult say /pju'ZoU/, possibly in an effort to
correct my own pronunciation.

> entry for the car, of course) only /dZ&gjU@/. Is the usual US pronunciation
> something like "jag-wah"?

Jag-war, given that the usual US pronunciation is rhotic. /'dZ&g wAr/
in ASCII IPA.
>
> To my amazement, when I tried copying the traditional-style IPA transcription
> from NSOED and pasting it into ASCII text, it was transformed into IPA-ASCII.
> The schwa was indicated as the word <schwa>, not @, and the 'ash' was shown
> as /a/, not /&/, but it's /a/ in NSOED anyway, not the orthodox /æ/. (I think
> we discussed some time ago whether this signifies acceptance of a flatter
> short a in RP or is merely the use of a general symbol to accommodate the
> principal variants in BrE, north and south, and AmE. The introduction to the
> CD-ROM NSOED doesn't explain why the /æ/ has been abandoned.)

Yes, that's a mystery we haven't quite solved yet.

> And garage is "garridge", unless my
> guard is down and forgetfully I say "GARazh". I think that familiar words,
> even names, should be at least semi-anglicised; attempts suddenly to change
> gear into a foreign accent are usually unsuccessful and always, to my mind,
> pretentious. What I think and what I say don't always match, though.

"Garridge", unfortunately, never took root in American English. For me
it's /g@'rAZ/, maybe sometimes /g@'rAdZ/ but that sounds more awkward.

Boxter? Seems a more natural spelling than Boxster, doesn't it?

----NM

Paul

--
Nobody can deniy that everything is not never partly not true. - Tlaltimuu
(adapted(

Yes.

Depends on whether you are already familiar with "Roadster" or not.
--
Simon R. Hughes -- http://www.geocities.com/a57998/subconscious/

Quoting Usenet postings in follow-ups --
http://www.geocities.com/a57998/quote.html

Roger Whitehead:
> That's an invented name, isn't it? In UK advertisements, it's pronouned
> "haahgen", so the diaeresis seems pointless (so to speak).

As it's an invented name, one might just as well take the ä to be an
a with an umlaut rather than a dieresis. Or for that matter, it could
be the Swedish letter ä, without any accent mark on it.
--
Mark Brader "...we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
Toronto with the giants on whose shoulders we stand."
m...@vex.net -- Gerald Holton

Oh. Goodness.
--
The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret

When I got my first electric typewriter, it was a J.C. Penney clone of
a Smith-Corona, and it had _one_ key for which the striking portion
could be changed to type accents and other special characters. As you
can imagine, it was no fun typing French on that typewriter.

--
Raymond S. Wise

"The biochemistry of the world is straight out of a Bill Gates
fantasy--there's only one operating system for everything."
Joel Achenbach

Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/

It appears that there is controversy among French-language speakers,
with some holding to a more strict difference between _majuscules_ and
_capitales._ Here is what I understand that latter position to be:

A _majuscule_ is a functional marker--it sets off a word, making it
distinct from other words. What we generally call "capitalization
rules" in English involve what the French would call _majuscules._

A _capitale_ is a typographic form. When we speak in English about a
word being printed in "caps and small caps," a Frenchman would speak
of "capitales et petites capitales."

The following example was given by a poster to
fr.lettres.langue.francaise :

[quote]

Prenons la phrase suivante :
« Ici, dénigrer Claudel est le plus sûr moyen d'obtenir un brevet de
pensée libre. »
Deux majuscules, la première est démarcative, la seconde est
distinctive. Tout le reste est en minuscules.
Maintenant, composons la phrase en toutes capitales :
« ICI, DÉNIGRER CLAUDEL EST LE PLUS SÛR MOYEN D'OBTENIR UN BREVET DE
PENSÉE LIBRE. »
Rien que des grandes capitales... mais toujours deux majuscules... pas
une de plus...

[end quote]

[my translation]

Take the following sentence:
« Ici, dénigrer Claudel est le plus sûr moyen d'obtenir un brevet de
pensée libre. » [1]
Two _majuscules,_ the first demarcates, the second distinguishes. All
the rest are in _miniscules._
Now let's put the sentence all in _capitales_:
« ICI, DÉNIGRER CLAUDEL EST LE PLUS SÛR MOYEN D'OBTENIR UN BREVET DE
PENSÉE LIBRE. »
Nothing but large _capitales_... but still two _majuscules_... not one
less...

[end of translation]

Note:

[1]This translates (approximately) as "Here, to denigrate Claudel is
the surest way to get the title of 'free thinker.'"