Accents in Am. English

[Aaron E. Drews]

>Andrea asks:
>
>> Would any of you mark a word wrong which lacks the accents that it had in its
>> originating language, e.g. resume, cafe, fiance?
>
>yes, yes, yes.
>
>>
>> Would you think that the word is missing its accents and is therefore harder to
>> understand?
>
>yes, particularly on 'resume'
>
>> If you saw the word "resumÈ" (the last letter is 'e' with an acute accent) would
>> you think, hey, it's missing the other accent?
>
>probably not.
>
>> Do any of you care?  Is it anyone's pet peeve?
>
>it's not my pet peeve, but i care.
>
>prescriptively,
>lynne

I wonder if it has something to so with not being in the U.S.  I would have had the same answers as Lynne.  I think it's some of the pedantry I've acquired being here.  :-)

--Aaron

--
________________________________________________________________________
Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron      Departments of English Language and
aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                    Theoretical & Applied Linguistics

 "MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
        --Death