New spelling: _genr=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=A9=5F_?=or _genre'_

W Brewer brewerwa at GMAIL.COM
Mon Sep 22 16:03:58 UTC 2014


LH:  <I've seen "cache" spelled that way and/or pronounced that way
([kaeS'e:], as in "sashay"), and I'm not talking about the past
participle (as in the title of the recent Auteuil/Binoche movie, where
the accent is intentionally not Hidden).>
WB:  earliest i recall *HEARING* cache [kaeS] (a secret hoard)
pernounced [kaeSe'] was from GIs during the Gulf Wars stumbling across
an arms/weapons [kaeS'e:]. Multiple factors at work:  cache [kaeS]
(relatively rare word) clashes homonymically with cash (money) (much
higher frequency), inducing a pronunciation differentiation for the
rarer form to the catchier sounding [kaeSe']. It seems that French,
German, & Spanish diacritics on the old typewriter keyboard
disappeared when computer geeks decided they didn't like them, and
they simply vanished in the '70s with arrival of computer keyboards.
Now, after a hiatus of decades, there has arisen a retro-diacritic
movement afoot amongst young 'uns, enabled by wondrous character
tables, who never had to learn foreign languages in high school, but
just think it's cool to sprinkle their script with an umlaut or a
grave or an aigu, whenever it strikes their fancy.

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



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