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

[Laurence Horn]

On Jan 31, 2013, at 5:56 PM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:

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> I had forgotten the line about Keyser Söze's father supposedly being German.
>
> "Söze" doesn't sound particularly German, though (although I could buy into "Keyser" being German -- see "Kaiser"); and the characters in the film don't pronounce "Söze" the way Germans would pronounce a word with that spelling.

There was enough information in the movie to make me feel I was on safe ground inferring his name was Turkish (whether or not I was correct in doing so), and yes, at least in linguistic treatments of Turkish written in English, those fronted Turkish vowels do involve umlauts and umlauting.  (It's not just the form of the symbol, since diaereses aren't umlauts, but the function as well, which is essentially the same in Turkish as in German, even though the causes, e.g. vowel harmony, might be different in some cases.)

LH
>
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>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of ADSGarson O'Toole
>> Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2013 4:49 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: diacritical marks WAS Re: Word (Phrase?) of the Year (so
>> far)?; Rambo'd (UNCLASSIFIED)
>>
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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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>> Subject:      Re: diacritical marks WAS Re: Word (Phrase?) of the Year
>> (so
>>              far)?; Rambo'd (UNCLASSIFIED)
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> --------
>>
>> Bill Mullins wrote:
>>>>
>>>> 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?)
>>
>> The (sometimes accurate) Wikipedia has an entry for Keyser Söze.
>>
>> [Begin excerpt]
>> According to "Verbal" Kint, who points out that Keyser Söze's father is
>> believed to have been German, Söze was once a petty drug dealer who
>> began his criminal career in his native Turkey.
>> [End excerpt]
>>
>> Is the last name supposed to be Turkish or German? Did Verbal Kint
>> construct enough of a backstory to specify this?
>>
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