Accents in Am. English

[Lynne Murphy]

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