diacritical marks WAS Re: Word (Phrase?) of the Year (so far)?; Rambo'd (UNCLASSIFIED)

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jan 31 22:07:29 UTC 2013


I always thought the word umlaut was reserved for German; in other
languages, including the one the New Yorker magazine is written in, the
word is diaeresis. There is also a difference in meaning -- the vowels with
an umlaut can also be written with a following 'e', but the diaeresis
allows for no such convention.

We discussed this here within the last few years.

DanG


On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 4:50 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <
Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      diacritical marks WAS     Re: Word (Phrase?) of the Year (so
>               far)?; Rambo'd (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> >
> > The Wikipedia entry for "The Usual Suspects uses the spelling Keyser
> > Soze with an umlaut over the o. Jonathan Lighter sent a message to the
> > list on June 2, 2011 about the "Keyser Soeze syndrome" that is
> somewhat
> > similar.  Dan Goncharoff sent a message about the "Keyser Soeze
> > syndrome" which concerns twist endings for films
> >
>
> From my high school German, I remember that an umlaut is the double-dot
> that goes over o (for the OE sound), the u (UE), and a (AE).  "Keyser
> Soze" (and the "o" in "Soze" had a double-dot) was a Turkish name, I
> believe.  Should it still be called an umlaut?  Is "umlaut" the general
> name for a double-dot mark over a vowel?  (or possibly consonants, as in
> "Spinal Tap", in which case the "n" had a double-dot?)
>
>
>
>
> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list