Accents in Am. English

[Benjamin Barrett]

I think the alcohol sake should either have an accent or be put in italics
because it is so easy to mistake for sake. Of course in Japanese, there is
no accent.

Also, Canada (college name in California) should get a tilde so people know
not to pronounce it like the country. I would definitely think these two
words seemed strange without the marks.

Having the second accent but not the first in resume is an error I've been
guilty of. I try to put on both or neither, but I don't consider only one to
be out in left field because both seems pretentious. (Sorry, it does!)

Other than that, I think accents are optional. Of course, I'm a writer
(translator), not a teacher.

Benjamin Barrett
gogaku at ix.netcom.com

>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On
>
>Would any of you mark a word wrong which lacks the accents that it
>had in its
>originating language, e.g. resume, cafe, fiance?
>
>Would you think that the word is missing its accents and is
>therefore harder to
>understand?
>
>If you saw the word "resumé" (the last letter is 'e' with an acute
>accent) would
>you think, hey, it's missing the other accent?
>
>Do any of you care?  Is it anyone's pet peeve?
>
>Are any of you in touch with K-12 folks?  If so, could you ask them if they
>teach accent writing?
>
></agitated state>
>
>Many thanks for your answers.
>Andrea