<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="" style="padding:0px;margin:6px 30px;border:0px;font-weight:normal;color:rgb(62,82,102);font-family:Heuristica,serif;line-height:1.15em">Motörhead, Häagen-Dazs, and Yöu</h1><p class="" style="padding:0px;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:0.875em;font-family:'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif;color:rgb(58,58,58)">
November 13, 2013, <span style="padding:0px;margin:0px;border:0px;color:rgb(120,8,8)">12:01 am</span></p><p class="" style="padding:0px;margin:0px 30px 0.25em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em;font-family:'Heuristica Italic',serif;color:rgb(58,58,58)">
By <a class="" href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/author/wgermano/" title="View all posts by William Germano" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;border:0px;color:rgb(62,82,102);text-decoration:none">William Germano</a></p>
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</li><li class="" style="padding:0px;margin:0px 5px;border:0px;float:left;list-style:square;font-family:'Source Sans Pro',sans-serif"><a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/11/13/motorhead-haagen-dazs-and-you/#disqus_thread" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;border:0px;color:rgb(0,66,118);text-decoration:none;font-family:Arial;font-size:12px"><img src="http://chronicle.com/img/icn_comment.png" alt="comment" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 30px 16px 0px; border: 0px; float: none;"></a></li>
</ul></div><p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em"><img class="" alt="" src="http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2012/11/everythingfallsapart.jpeg" width="239" height="239" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px 30px 16px 0px; border: 0px; float: left;">Like many Lingua Franca readers, I spend some of my life in airports, which has undoubtedly given me a skewed view of language. Be that as it may, I’ve been particularly struck this autumn by what seems to be the rise of the reckless diacritical.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">I’m not a linguist, as readers of this blog will know. I won’t delve into the historical arcana of diacritical marks, except to say that they seem to have been necessities of writing since antiquity, as if alphabetic language itself were born in need of a little help.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">Still, nothing I know about Greek or German prepared me for the airport kiosk that sported products under the brand name <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">Cl</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ö</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">udz</span>. The <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">u</span> is shaped like a neck pillow; the people at Clöudz sell little travel blankets and pillows and such, which are nice things to find in airports, though frankly I’d be uncomfortable buying something with such a ridiculous name. I’m sure I’d try to pronounce it kleu-udzh, which would be embarrassing for all concerned. Still, somebody in marketing had the idea that a little linguistic deformation would move the merch, a hunch that I assume has been born out at the register.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">Why do we think diacritical marks are cute? Funny? When did they become part of hipster semiotics? Of course, real diacriticals can do real work. That pair of dark spots over a vowel can function either as an umlaut, which changes the vowel’s sound—as in <i>Ü</i><i>bermensch</i>—or a dieresis, which instructs the reader to pronounce consecutive vowels separately—as in the now infrequent <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Italic',serif">coöperation</span>. Few modern readers are likely to mistake the word as having something to do with chickens<span style="font-family:'Heuristica Italic',serif">—cooperation</span> will do just fine.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">Then in the 1970s, strange diacritical things started to happen. I don’t blame the appearance of <i>diacritics</i> (though that journal did materialize in 1971, only a few cultural moments before the wave broke). In 1975 <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">Mot</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ö</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">rhead</span> happened. A year later, the founders of an estimable ice-cream company opened their first retail store, leaving the world to wonder whether <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">“H</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ä</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">agen-Dazs”</span> was a greeting in some unknown language. <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">H</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ü</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">sker D</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ü</span> came along in 1979.<span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">M</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ö</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">tley Cr</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ü</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">e </span> in 1980. The term <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">r</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ö</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ck d</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ö</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ts</span><i> </i>was invented.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">These diacriticals caught on as typographic eye candy (yes, “husker du?” means something, though not with umlauts). In the examples I’ve cited above, the little marks don’t help the reader and aren’t meant to. They’re fun, at least sometimes, and memorable. And yes, all by itself <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">Clouds</span> might be a boring brand name for a line of travel pillows.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">This season the ante has been upped: The Tommy Hilfiger clothing line has launched, with a linguistic swagger, a global marketing campaign entitled <span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">C</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ä</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">rpe-d</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">í</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">em Ma</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ñ</span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif">ana</span>.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">If you haven’t seen the phrase yet, you will, especially if you have family or friends in the Hilfiger target demographic. I saw this slogan on an airport shop window in Zürich (not Zurich) last month and followed up when I landed at Newark.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">Opening my iPad I read about the Hilfiger’s diacritical maneuvering at something called <a href="http://www.getthefive.com/articles/fivethot/" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;border:0px;color:rgb(0,122,173);text-decoration:none"><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif"><i>FIVE TH</i></span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif"><i>ô</i></span><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif"><i>T</i></span><i>,</i></a> a<i> </i>website that describes itself as “the intersection of creativity and commerce,” which I guess is sort of like Hollywood and Vine with a circumflex. The people who write the <i>TH</i><i>ô</i><i>T </i>thoughts seem excited about <i>C</i><i>ä</i><i>rpe-d</i><i>í</i><i>em Ma</i><i>ñ</i><i>ana, </i>and given the brand’s marketing muscle I suppose a generation will be grabbing their diems slowly, and doing it in Tommy’s clothing line.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">But what are we language types to do with <i>C</i><i>ä</i><i>rpe-d</i><i>í</i><i>em Ma</i><i>ñ</i><i>ana?</i><span style="font-family:'Heuristica Bold',serif"></span>The umlaut, the hyphen, the accent, the whole crazy package? It feels like a mashup of Spanish, Vietnamese, and something vaguely northeast of the Alps. Somewhere in the ether Horace, Robert Herrick, Miss Peggy Lee (remember “Mañana Is Soon Enough For Me”?), and several comp-lit professors are having a little weep.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">The only recourse for us earthlings may be some umlauted rock on Pandora and enough chocolate ice cream to induce what should be called—inevitably—a Häagen daze.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em">As for <i>C</i><i>ä</i><i>rpe-d</i><i>í</i><i>em Ma</i><i>ñ</i><i>ana, </i>like gather ye rösebudz while ye may or whatever.</p>
<p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em"><a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/11/13/motorhead-haagen-dazs-and-you/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en">http://chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2013/11/13/motorhead-haagen-dazs-and-you/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en</a><br>
</p><p style="padding:0px;margin:0px 0px 1.3333em;border:0px;line-height:1.667em;font-size:1.125em"><br></p></div></div><div><br></div>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br>
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br>
<br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------
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