Stay away from the pate pâté
April 20, 2006 4:33 PM Subscribe
When to use diacritical marks? (or, The coöperative hôtel guest ate pâté.)
Are there any rules governing the use of diacritical marks?
It seems to me that many diacritical marks are redundant, distracting, and/or pretentious. Hotels lost there carets many years ago and Americans have cooperated without umlauts as long as I can remember. Sure, Jeffrey Dahmer ate head, but swanky hotel guests are more inclined to eat liver.
MS Word "corrects" my spelling of vis-a-vis and resume, but doesn't add carets to hotel. Helpful? Maybe. Necessary? No. The New Yorker uses diacritical marks that haven't even been Unicoded yet. To me it reeks of the same pretension I feel when listening to NPR's Mandalit del Barco or Sylvia Poggioli pronounce every non-English word with an accent.
Is staying in a hôtel in May-hee-co preferred to staying in a hotel in Mexico?
Are there any rules governing the use of diacritical marks?
It seems to me that many diacritical marks are redundant, distracting, and/or pretentious. Hotels lost there carets many years ago and Americans have cooperated without umlauts as long as I can remember. Sure, Jeffrey Dahmer ate head, but swanky hotel guests are more inclined to eat liver.
MS Word "corrects" my spelling of vis-a-vis and resume, but doesn't add carets to hotel. Helpful? Maybe. Necessary? No. The New Yorker uses diacritical marks that haven't even been Unicoded yet. To me it reeks of the same pretension I feel when listening to NPR's Mandalit del Barco or Sylvia Poggioli pronounce every non-English word with an accent.
Is staying in a hôtel in May-hee-co preferred to staying in a hotel in Mexico?
If it's a foreign loan word, use the diacriticals. If it's been adopted into English, don't. Of course then you have to decide when a word has truly been adopted. Pick a style guide and stick with it. If you're writing for a particular audience there may be one that is already suggested. If not, decide on your own. My vote would be for fewer diacriticals except to avoid confusion. Resume? English. Pate? Did you mean "head" or "goose liver?"
posted by zanni at 4:50 PM on April 20, 2006
posted by zanni at 4:50 PM on April 20, 2006
My writing/editing/publishing rule of thumb: check it in a dictionary. (And I don't mean the OED. Webster's collegiate will do fine.) If the diacritic mark is retained there, use it. If not, don't. (So you'll see that vis-a-vis gets one, hotel doesn't, and cafe is your call.) Place names with diacritics don't usually need them in English, either, so you're fine spelling Mexico without one.
The New Yorker is not a good guide for this sort of thing, because their house style guide A) unique to the New Yorker, and B) is fair-to-partly insane, utilizing an assortment of oddities that aren't present in any other publication on the planet. Read it for the stories; ignore the fact that they put a diaeresis in cooperation.
posted by scody at 4:52 PM on April 20, 2006
The New Yorker is not a good guide for this sort of thing, because their house style guide A) unique to the New Yorker, and B) is fair-to-partly insane, utilizing an assortment of oddities that aren't present in any other publication on the planet. Read it for the stories; ignore the fact that they put a diaeresis in cooperation.
posted by scody at 4:52 PM on April 20, 2006
We don't use the caret over the "o" in "hotel" because we no longer pronounce the word in that way.
We do, however, pronounce "vis-á-vis" and "resumé" in a manner that befits the placement of those diacritical marks.
That being said... if you're not writing for the New Yorker, I don't think many people will care. You seem to have made up your mind already anyway.
posted by maxreax at 4:52 PM on April 20, 2006
We do, however, pronounce "vis-á-vis" and "resumé" in a manner that befits the placement of those diacritical marks.
That being said... if you're not writing for the New Yorker, I don't think many people will care. You seem to have made up your mind already anyway.
posted by maxreax at 4:52 PM on April 20, 2006
I should mention, by the way, that "how we pronounce a word" is not at all a hard-and-fast rule for when and where to use diacritical marks; I just think it's a pretty good rule of thumb that seems to uphold in most publications, the New Yorker notwithstanding.
posted by maxreax at 4:54 PM on April 20, 2006
posted by maxreax at 4:54 PM on April 20, 2006
Resume? English. Pate? Did you mean "head" or "goose liver?"
Did you mean "re-start" or "CV"?
posted by maxreax at 4:54 PM on April 20, 2006
Did you mean "re-start" or "CV"?
posted by maxreax at 4:54 PM on April 20, 2006
The idiosyncracy of New Yorker style is almost a marketing tool these days. If you're not following a house style, it's probably best to use them only if not using them would cause more confusion and hassle ('resume' being one of those tricky cases). 'First, do no harm.'
Also, there are degrees of acceptability, usually related to proper nouns: I prefer using 'Schröder' and not 'Schroeder' where appropriate, because it's a reminder that the former German Chancellor is not related to the kid in Peanuts with the little piano; but remembering that it's 'Slavoj Žižek' is a bit of a transcontinental stretch. If it's Slovenian, the pronunciation is going to be murdered in English no matter what.
posted by holgate at 5:02 PM on April 20, 2006
Also, there are degrees of acceptability, usually related to proper nouns: I prefer using 'Schröder' and not 'Schroeder' where appropriate, because it's a reminder that the former German Chancellor is not related to the kid in Peanuts with the little piano; but remembering that it's 'Slavoj Žižek' is a bit of a transcontinental stretch. If it's Slovenian, the pronunciation is going to be murdered in English no matter what.
posted by holgate at 5:02 PM on April 20, 2006
Hôtel is pronounced "oh-tell" in French, with a short staccato "oh" sound, and no "h" sound.
posted by DannyUKNYC at 5:05 PM on April 20, 2006
posted by DannyUKNYC at 5:05 PM on April 20, 2006
scody is, as usual, right: look it up in the dictionary (Webster's Collegiate is a common "bible" for editors, and nobody will get on your case for following it). And you might try losing the attitude; you don't sound like you're asking a question so much as calling for a choir of reassurance ("Yeah! Accents suck!").
maxreax: Your analysis makes no sense. It has nothing to do with pronunciation, except in the special case of resumé (which needs to be differentiated from resume)—what exactly do you mean by saying vis-à-vis (not "vis-á-vis") is pronounced "in a manner that befits the placement of those diacritical marks"? It's purely a question of usage, and the dictionary is the best place to get a reading on that.
posted by languagehat at 5:28 PM on April 20, 2006
maxreax: Your analysis makes no sense. It has nothing to do with pronunciation, except in the special case of resumé (which needs to be differentiated from resume)—what exactly do you mean by saying vis-à-vis (not "vis-á-vis") is pronounced "in a manner that befits the placement of those diacritical marks"? It's purely a question of usage, and the dictionary is the best place to get a reading on that.
posted by languagehat at 5:28 PM on April 20, 2006
We do, however, pronounce "vis-á-vis" and "resumé" in a manner that befits the placement of those diacritical marks.
Sort of. In fact, it's a kind of mangled survival. The grave accent in 'vis-à-vis' tells English speakers to pronounce the unmarked words differently (veez-a-vee); a single accent in 'resumé' and 'paté' is often enough to remind us that they were once 'résumé' and 'pâté' and alert us to a pronunciation that the marks themselves don't indicate. They're transitional forms. English is funny that way.
posted by holgate at 5:32 PM on April 20, 2006
Sort of. In fact, it's a kind of mangled survival. The grave accent in 'vis-à-vis' tells English speakers to pronounce the unmarked words differently (veez-a-vee); a single accent in 'resumé' and 'paté' is often enough to remind us that they were once 'résumé' and 'pâté' and alert us to a pronunciation that the marks themselves don't indicate. They're transitional forms. English is funny that way.
posted by holgate at 5:32 PM on April 20, 2006
We don't use the caret over the "o" in "hotel" because we no longer pronounce the word in that way.
The ^ in hôtel is not about pronunciation; it means that a letter (s) next to the o has been lost in French, as found in the cognate English word "hostel."
As near as I can tell, the diacritics in the New Yorker's version of coöperate (et cetera) are there out of some desire to have diacritics in English. Unfortunately, they're not being used to simplify the spelling, so I've no use for the things and don't think that they'll catch on.
posted by graymouser at 5:39 PM on April 20, 2006
The ^ in hôtel is not about pronunciation; it means that a letter (s) next to the o has been lost in French, as found in the cognate English word "hostel."
As near as I can tell, the diacritics in the New Yorker's version of coöperate (et cetera) are there out of some desire to have diacritics in English. Unfortunately, they're not being used to simplify the spelling, so I've no use for the things and don't think that they'll catch on.
posted by graymouser at 5:39 PM on April 20, 2006
My writing/editing/publishing rule of thumb: check it in a dictionary.
I don't know. Dictionaries are highly useful, but you can't take them as absolutes--specifically regarding a question on orthographical/locutional evolution. The very fact that he's asking "has it changed" almost inherently invalidates a (largely) static tool like a dictionary (obviously it changes over time, but you, and many other people might have the same dictionary for years, and even multiple dictionaries might take a while to catch on to the concept).
I think the advice here is mostly sound, and personally, as a linguist (of sorts), I'd just say adapt to the situation. Holgate's bit on 'Slavoj Žižek' was to the point; when a word is appropriately assimilated into the English language, minimal to no diacratic marks are needed. When it is still a 'loanword,' go with its flow.
So, question: "guillotine." Who here says what? I prefer an English-ified version of the original spelling--it's the most logical, I think, rather than braindamaging it with your own language's rules. So, I just say something like "Gee-ya-teen."
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 6:40 PM on April 20, 2006
I don't know. Dictionaries are highly useful, but you can't take them as absolutes--specifically regarding a question on orthographical/locutional evolution. The very fact that he's asking "has it changed" almost inherently invalidates a (largely) static tool like a dictionary (obviously it changes over time, but you, and many other people might have the same dictionary for years, and even multiple dictionaries might take a while to catch on to the concept).
I think the advice here is mostly sound, and personally, as a linguist (of sorts), I'd just say adapt to the situation. Holgate's bit on 'Slavoj Žižek' was to the point; when a word is appropriately assimilated into the English language, minimal to no diacratic marks are needed. When it is still a 'loanword,' go with its flow.
So, question: "guillotine." Who here says what? I prefer an English-ified version of the original spelling--it's the most logical, I think, rather than braindamaging it with your own language's rules. So, I just say something like "Gee-ya-teen."
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 6:40 PM on April 20, 2006
The best part about "resumé" is that that's still just the American spelling; in France it's a résumé. (Well, it's a "CV", but the other word has two accents.)
posted by mendel at 7:55 PM on April 20, 2006
posted by mendel at 7:55 PM on April 20, 2006
My point about 'Žižek' is that it's the sort of name you have to copy-and-paste in order to get 'right'. You can get away with 'Zizek' because the z-caron (pronounced like the 's' in 'treasure;) or the ognorek or the Turkish undotted i and j are beyond the realm of commonly-recognised diacritics. By that I mean ones which are: a) widely used and recognised for foreign-origin words in English settings; b) keyboard-accessible and supported in ISO-8859-1. (No Unicode wars, please. I just mean that they're a pain to find and use.) You could try to phoneticise it to 'Zhizhek', but that's a practice better suited to transliteration of Cyrillic Ж, and to do so creates more pronunciation problems than leaving it as is.
In short, some diacritics are actually too 'unassimilated' to use.
posted by holgate at 7:58 PM on April 20, 2006
In short, some diacritics are actually too 'unassimilated' to use.
posted by holgate at 7:58 PM on April 20, 2006
The grave accent in 'vis-à-vis' tells English speakers to pronounce the unmarked words differently (veez-a-vee)Um... I see what you mean, I think, but no it doesn't really. It might be a handy reminder that this is French we're dealing with so one should remember to pronounce the two 'vis' differently, but in and of itself it the diacritical does not indicate this. You might just as well put a [French][/French] tag round it, which would have a similar effect.
The ô in (French) hotel is a marker of pronunciation, but only in French. There's only really one way to pronounce it in English, and the spelling makes no difference. If people want to pronounce it in the French way with no 'h' sound that's their lookout, and it has nothing to do with spelling (and everything, dare I say, with pretentiousness).
Going way back, the ô indicates that there was once an 's' after the vowel (as is the case for many diacritical marks in French) - indicating the relationship with 'hostel'.
posted by altolinguistic at 11:52 PM on April 20, 2006
The Economist is one of the few print news sources I trust. I also trust their Style Guide. Re: Accents/Diacritical Marks:
On the other hand, I swear I saw a diaeresis used on cooperate in their newspaper recently, and that would seem to violate their own rules. The rule seems commonsense - I think resume, for example, is just on the cusp of this rule and that's why people fuss over it.
posted by oxonium at 12:33 AM on April 21, 2006
On words now accepted as English, use accents only when they make a crucial difference to pronunciation: cliché, soupçon, façade, café, communiqué, exposé (but chateau, decor, elite, feted, naive).
On the other hand, I swear I saw a diaeresis used on cooperate in their newspaper recently, and that would seem to violate their own rules. The rule seems commonsense - I think resume, for example, is just on the cusp of this rule and that's why people fuss over it.
posted by oxonium at 12:33 AM on April 21, 2006
I assume that sans the accent, facade woul dnormally be pronounced fa-kade instead of fah-sah-duh. Sorry for the rough phonetics.
posted by GuyZero at 6:21 AM on April 21, 2006
posted by GuyZero at 6:21 AM on April 21, 2006
I once heard a waiter in Kansas say "fa-kade" in describing the front of his restaurant. My guess was he'd never heard of c-cedilla.
To answer the question, when to use them, my answer is, whenever you can. Because I remember the old days pre-wwweb when all we had was typewriters, and whenever a foreign word was used, you had to mark it up by hand. (Couldn't even do italics unless you had an IBM selectric with the right optional ball.) Now, HTML provides all of them, so go crazy!
Jeffrey Dahmer ate head, but swanky hotel guests are more inclined to eat liver.
WTF?
posted by Rash at 10:11 AM on April 21, 2006
To answer the question, when to use them, my answer is, whenever you can. Because I remember the old days pre-wwweb when all we had was typewriters, and whenever a foreign word was used, you had to mark it up by hand. (Couldn't even do italics unless you had an IBM selectric with the right optional ball.) Now, HTML provides all of them, so go crazy!
Jeffrey Dahmer ate head, but swanky hotel guests are more inclined to eat liver.
WTF?
posted by Rash at 10:11 AM on April 21, 2006
The grave accent in 'vis-à-vis' tells English speakers to pronounce the unmarked words differently (veez-a-vee)
No, the two vis in vis-à-vis are pronounced differently because the first terminal s is followed by vowel (and is therefore not silent) but the second terminal s is not (and is therefore silent).
posted by methylsalicylate at 10:39 AM on April 21, 2006
No, the two vis in vis-à-vis are pronounced differently because the first terminal s is followed by vowel (and is therefore not silent) but the second terminal s is not (and is therefore silent).
posted by methylsalicylate at 10:39 AM on April 21, 2006
because the first terminal s is followed by vowel (and is therefore not silent) but the second terminal s is not (and is therefore silent).
That's my point. How exactly does an a-grave indicate that to an English speaker? Not in the way that c-cedilla indicates a soft c or an e-acute indicates an open e. It doesn't change the pronunciation of 'a' [schwa] to a French speaker, nor to an English speaker, because its native function is grammatical; but to an English speaker, it basically says 'adopt French pronunciation rules for this idiomatic phrase', which means nothing if you don't already know what they are. That's why it's a strange form.
Rash: pate vs pâté.
posted by holgate at 4:51 PM on April 21, 2006
That's my point. How exactly does an a-grave indicate that to an English speaker? Not in the way that c-cedilla indicates a soft c or an e-acute indicates an open e. It doesn't change the pronunciation of 'a' [schwa] to a French speaker, nor to an English speaker, because its native function is grammatical; but to an English speaker, it basically says 'adopt French pronunciation rules for this idiomatic phrase', which means nothing if you don't already know what they are. That's why it's a strange form.
Rash: pate vs pâté.
posted by holgate at 4:51 PM on April 21, 2006
altolinguistic: You might just as well put a [French][/French] tag round it, which would have a similar effect.
Precisely: vis-à-vis is in no way pronounced 'in a manner that befits the placement of those diacritical marks'; it's pronounced by English speakers in a manner that reflects their understanding of the general pronunciation rules of the language best known for using that particular diacritical mark.
posted by holgate at 4:59 PM on April 21, 2006
Precisely: vis-à-vis is in no way pronounced 'in a manner that befits the placement of those diacritical marks'; it's pronounced by English speakers in a manner that reflects their understanding of the general pronunciation rules of the language best known for using that particular diacritical mark.
posted by holgate at 4:59 PM on April 21, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
If it's a word that has entered American English, it doesn't take an accent—such as "hotel." If it's a word you'd be likely to write in italics, indicating it hasn't quite shed its foreign accent, preserve the diacritical marks.
"Resume" is an interesting case because the word sans diacritical marks is a completely separate word from the one that has them; in that case, they helpfully disambiguate (of course, you can elide the problem by spelling it "CV").
posted by adamrice at 4:49 PM on April 20, 2006