Is It "öo" or "oö"??

[Prisoner at War]

Hello, AEU!

In words like "cooperation," if one were to be fancy about it, where
would the umlaut go, over the first "o" or the second?

Is it "cöoperation" or should it be "coöperation"?

TIA!

[Purl Gurl]

Post by Prisoner at War
In words like "cooperation," if one were to be fancy about it, where
would the umlaut go, over the first "o" or the second?
Is it "cöoperation" or should it be "coöperation"?

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cml%C3%A4%C3%BC%E1%BA%97

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Umlaut

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Umlaut_monster

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by Prisoner at War
Hello, AEU!
In words like "cooperation," if one were to be fancy about it, where
would the umlaut go, over the first "o" or the second?
Is it "cöoperation" or should it be "coöperation"?

The rare people who uses diaereses in English put them on the second
of two vowels (the opposite from what they do in Spanish, for example),
so coöperation. There are also those who write co-operation, but I am
not among them.

[Andrew Heenan]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
There are also those who write co-operation, but I am
not among them.

Interesting; the crude but indicative Google count says:
68,700,000 for co-operative
49,800,000 for cooperative

Does it matter?

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by Andrew Heenan

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
There are also those who write co-operation, but I am
not among them.

68,700,000 for co-operative
49,800,000 for cooperative

OK, so I'm in the minority, but minority rights should be respected,
especially if they amount to 42% of the total.

Post by Andrew Heenan
Does it matter?

No, it doesn't matter, except to people who think there is a serious
risk that readers will be confused enough to think they need to
pronounce the first syllable like "coop". Such people exist, as I've
had this silly argument trotted out to me by publisher's assistants
who've insisted on sticking hyphens in places where they are not
needed. It also matters to authors who dislike having their text messed
around by people who know less of the subject than they do.

I'd guess that at least some of the 68000000 wrote "cooperative" but
had it changed to "co-operative" by a busybody.

Incidentally, as long ago as 1926 Fowler thought there was no need for
a hyphen in "cooperate". 82 years ought to be enough for people to get
used to the idea that the first syllable is not coop.

I believe the New Yorker (which I haven't looked at recently) spells it
"coöperate", but that's an affectation more than because they think
readers won't get the meaning otherwise.

[HVS]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Andrew Heenan

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
There are also those who write co-operation, but I am
not among them.

68,700,000 for co-operative
49,800,000 for cooperative

OK, so I'm in the minority, but minority rights should be
respected, especially if they amount to 42% of the total.

Post by Andrew Heenan
Does it matter?

No, it doesn't matter, except to people who think there is a
serious risk that readers will be confused enough to think they
need to pronounce the first syllable like "coop". Such people
exist, as I've had this silly argument trotted out to me by
publisher's assistants who've insisted on sticking hyphens in
places where they are not needed.

Mileages clearly vary.

I'm one of those people whose mind's ear defaults to "coop" for the
first syllable of "cooperative", and I invariably have to stop for
a second as I stumble over the word every time it's written that
way.

For this reason I don't consider the hyphen to be "not needed", and
I tend to see the non-hyphenated form as a kind of self-centred
typographical aggression.

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by HVS

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Andrew Heenan

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
There are also those who write co-operation, but I am
not among them.

68,700,000 for co-operative
49,800,000 for cooperative

OK, so I'm in the minority, but minority rights should be
respected, especially if they amount to 42% of the total.

Post by Andrew Heenan
Does it matter?

No, it doesn't matter, except to people who think there is a
serious risk that readers will be confused enough to think they
need to pronounce the first syllable like "coop". Such people
exist, as I've had this silly argument trotted out to me by
publisher's assistants who've insisted on sticking hyphens in
places where they are not needed.

Mileages clearly vary.
I'm one of those people whose mind's ear defaults to "coop" for the
first syllable of "cooperative", and I invariably have to stop for
a second as I stumble over the word every time it's written that
way.
For this reason I don't consider the hyphen to be "not needed", and
I tend to see the non-hyphenated form as a kind of self-centred
typographical aggression.

Do you feel the same way about omitting the hyphens from "coalesce"
(does it make you think of coal) and "coincide" (does it make you think
of coins?), two of the several words for which Fowler (1965 -- the 1st
edition is at home) says "the hyphen is never used"? So far as
"cooperate" is concerned, he said (again 1965) ""the hyphen, though
sometimes used, is entirely superfluous". That seems a bit stronger
than my "not needed"!

Anyway, I'm interested you feel so strongly about it. The only people
I've previously come across who do are sub-editors.

[Andrew Heenan]

Anyway, I'm interested you feel so strongly about it. The only people I've
previously come across who do are sub-editors.

A dying breed; wonderful folk, but while Fowler is their Bible, that's only
when he agrees with them.

I find that a crucifix and a sprig of garlic is very effective.

[HVS]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by HVS

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Andrew Heenan

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
There are also those who write co-operation, but I am
not among them.

68,700,000 for co-operative
49,800,000 for cooperative

OK, so I'm in the minority, but minority rights should be
respected, especially if they amount to 42% of the total.

Post by Andrew Heenan
Does it matter?

No, it doesn't matter, except to people who think there is a
serious risk that readers will be confused enough to think
they need to pronounce the first syllable like "coop". Such
people exist, as I've had this silly argument trotted out to
me by publisher's assistants who've insisted on sticking
hyphens in places where they are not needed.

Mileages clearly vary.
I'm one of those people whose mind's ear defaults to "coop" for
the first syllable of "cooperative", and I invariably have to
stop for a second as I stumble over the word every time it's
written that way.
For this reason I don't consider the hyphen to be "not needed",
and I tend to see the non-hyphenated form as a kind of
self-centred typographical aggression.

Do you feel the same way about omitting the hyphens from
"coalesce" (does it make you think of coal) and "coincide" (does
it make you think of coins?), two of the several words for which
Fowler (1965 -- the 1st edition is at home) says "the hyphen is
never used"?

No, I don't -- but "cooperate" doesen't make me think of a coop,
either.

The problem I have with the omission of the hyphen doesn't relate
to reading the first letters as a word -- it's that the doubled
"oo" is so prominent that it dominates my initial perception of
what sounds are being represented.

That doesn't apply to combinations like "oi" or "oa" -- they're not
as dominant -- but I'd certainly have the same problem with
"reenter" or "reengage".

[Prisoner at War]

Very interesting point; I tend to feel a little like this myself,
though I'd be perfectly fine if I were an editor and the author
insisted on "oo".

Very interesting points by all; thanks so much, everybody!

Post by HVS

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by HVS

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Andrew Heenan

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
There are also those who write co-operation, but I am
not among them.

68,700,000 for co-operative
49,800,000 for cooperative

OK, so I'm in the minority, but minority rights should be
respected, especially if they amount to 42% of the total.

Post by Andrew Heenan
Does it matter?

No, it doesn't matter, except to people who think there is a
serious risk that readers will be confused enough to think
they need to pronounce the first syllable like "coop".  Such
people exist, as I've had this silly argument trotted out to
me by publisher's assistants who've insisted on sticking
hyphens in places where they are not needed.

Mileages clearly vary.
I'm one of those people whose mind's ear defaults to "coop" for
the first syllable of "cooperative", and I invariably have to
stop for a second as I stumble over the word every time it's
written that way.
For this reason I don't consider the hyphen to be "not needed",
and I tend to see the non-hyphenated form as a kind of
self-centred typographical aggression.

Do you feel the same way about omitting the hyphens from
"coalesce" (does it make you think of coal) and "coincide" (does
it make you think of coins?), two of the several words for which
Fowler (1965 -- the 1st edition is at home) says "the hyphen is
never used"?

No, I don't -- but "cooperate" doesen't make me think of a coop,
either.
The problem I have with the omission of the hyphen doesn't relate
to reading the first letters as a word -- it's that the doubled
"oo" is so prominent that it dominates my initial perception of
what sounds are being represented.
That doesn't apply to combinations like "oi" or "oa" -- they're not
as dominant -- but I'd certainly have the same problem with
"reenter" or "reengage".
--
Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed

[John Varela]

Post by HVS
I'm one of those people whose mind's ear defaults to "coop" for the
first syllable of "cooperative", and I invariably have to stop for
a second as I stumble over the word every time it's written that
way.

The Harvard Cooperative Society is called "The Coop" as in chicken
coop.

[Andrew Heenan]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Andrew Heenan
68,700,000 for co-operative
49,800,000 for cooperative

OK, so I'm in the minority, but minority rights should be respected,
especially if they amount to 42% of the total.
I'd guess that at least some of the 68000000 wrote "cooperative" but had
it changed to "co-operative" by a busybody.

You are almost vertainly correct!

Thanks!

[Adam Funk]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
I believe the New Yorker (which I haven't looked at recently) spells it
"coöperate", but that's an affectation more than because they think
readers won't get the meaning otherwise.

You say that like it's a bad thing. <g>

[Glenn Knickerbocker]

Post by Andrew Heenan
68,700,000 for co-operative
49,800,000 for cooperative

Google treats hyphens as punctuation and doesn't index them. A
hyphenated search string with no Boolean operator finds the words either
in succession or as a single word, so your first count includes the
second. You can use quotation marks or a + sign to specify an exact
spelling:

9,680,000 for +co-operative
9,680,000 for "co-operative"
9,680,000 for "co operative"

¬R "I love Blip just because it's the absolute opposite of fun"
http://users.bestweb.net/~notr/travelog/19990710.html --Kibo

[Adam Funk]

Post by Prisoner at War
In words like "cooperation," if one were to be fancy about it, where
would the umlaut go, over the first "o" or the second?
Is it "cöoperation" or should it be "coöperation"?

The old-fashioned form is "coöperation" (not that there's necessarily
anything wrong with being old-fashioned).

BTW, it's not an "umlaut" in this case but a "diaeresis", even though
the symbol is the same. An umlaut marks a vowel change in German ("ü"
is pronounced differently from "u") whereas a diaeresis marks a
separation between two vowels ("coöperate" as opposed to "chicken
coop") in English (or in French, where it's called a "tréma").

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Prisoner at War
In words like "cooperation," if one were to be fancy about it, where
would the umlaut go, over the first "o" or the second?
Is it "cöoperation" or should it be "coöperation"?

The old-fashioned form is "coöperation" (not that there's necessarily
anything wrong with being old-fashioned).
BTW, it's not an "umlaut" in this case but a "diaeresis", even though
the symbol is the same.

Not quite the same. An umlaut consists of two straight short lines
(much like a straight double quotation mark "), and derives from the
appearance of an old-fashioned handwritten German e (which looks more
like a u than an e to modern eyes). A diaeresis consists of two dots.

[Cece]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Prisoner at War
In words like "cooperation," if one were to be fancy about it, where
would the umlaut go, over the first "o" or the second?
Is it "cöoperation" or should it be "coöperation"?

The old-fashioned form is "coöperation" (not that there's necessarily
anything wrong with being old-fashioned).
BTW, it's not an "umlaut" in this case but a "diaeresis", even though
the symbol is the same.

Not quite the same. An umlaut consists of two straight short lines
(much like a straight double quotation mark "), and derives from the
appearance of an old-fashioned handwritten German e (which looks more
like a u than an e to modern eyes). A diaeresis consists of two dots.
--
athel

Not that I've ever noticed. The umlaut is two round dots in every
German text I've really looked at. Including The New Cassell's German
Dictionary But then, all those texts were in legible type. Perhaps
the lines are Fraktur? If I remember, I'll look next time I'm near an
old German book that was printed in Fraktur and see if I can find a
more recent non-Fraktur text printed in Germany to compare.

[Prisoner at War]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Prisoner at War
In words like "cooperation," if one were to be fancy about it, where
would the umlaut go, over the first "o" or the second?
Is it "cöoperation" or should it be "coöperation"?

The old-fashioned form is "coöperation" (not that there's necessarily
anything wrong with being old-fashioned).
BTW, it's not an "umlaut" in this case but a "diaeresis", even though
the symbol is the same.

Not quite the same. An umlaut consists of two straight short lines
(much like a straight double quotation mark "), and derives from the
appearance of an old-fashioned handwritten German e (which looks more
like a u than an e to modern eyes). A diaeresis consists of two dots.
--
athel

Not that I've ever noticed.  The umlaut is two round dots in every
German text I've really looked at.  Including The New Cassell's German
Dictionary  But then, all those texts were in legible type.  Perhaps
the lines are Fraktur?  If I remember, I'll look next time I'm near an
old German book that was printed in Fraktur and see if I can find a
more recent non-Fraktur text printed in Germany to compare.

Say, I wonder what our Kollegen over at AUG think? Or even
comp.fonts, for that matter!

[Character]

Post by Prisoner at War

Post by Cece

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Prisoner at War
In words like "cooperation," if one were to be fancy about it, where
would the umlaut go, over the first "o" or the second?
Is it "cöoperation" or should it be "coöperation"?

The old-fashioned form is "coöperation" (not that there's necessarily
anything wrong with being old-fashioned).
BTW, it's not an "umlaut" in this case but a "diaeresis", even though
the symbol is the same.

Not quite the same. An umlaut consists of two straight short lines
(much like a straight double quotation mark "), and derives from the
appearance of an old-fashioned handwritten German e (which looks more
like a u than an e to modern eyes). A diaeresis consists of two dots.
--
athel

Not that I've ever noticed. The umlaut is two round dots in every
German text I've really looked at. Including The New Cassell's German
Dictionary But then, all those texts were in legible type. Perhaps
the lines are Fraktur? If I remember, I'll look next time I'm near an
old German book that was printed in Fraktur and see if I can find a
more recent non-Fraktur text printed in Germany to compare.

Say, I wonder what our Kollegen over at AUG think? Or even
comp.fonts, for that matter!

Here's a comment from Michael Schlierbach in a Typophile discussion
about 3 yrs ago. Unfortunately, there's no attribution:

"The indication of “Umlaut” and the “diaeresis” had been different
forms of sign before:
The Umlaut consists of two strokes. As I read somewhere (maybe here?)
it roots from a small “e” written in brokenscript (formed like an
“11”) over the umlaut base character. The german word “Umlaut” means
“a change in the sound”.
The diaeresis obviously always had been two dots - indicating two
different sounds. The greek word “diairesis” means “splitting up,
dividing, cutting up” (and it belongs to same field as “heretic”
meaning division that separates from the others).

So confusion of both is only coming from the reduction of the two
strokes to two points.
As german language for a long time has been associated and developped
in brokenscript (with strokes) and on the other hand latin script
evolved without a sign for “umlaut” the confusion began, when the two
strokes where taken from broken script to latin script and interpreted
as points." [http://www.typophile.com/node/13181]

- Character

[Helmut Richter]

"The indication of «Umlaut» and the «diaeresis» had been different forms of
The Umlaut consists of two strokes. As I read somewhere (maybe here?) it roots
from a small «e» written in brokenscript (formed like an «11») over the umlaut
base character. The german word «Umlaut» means «a change in the sound».
The diaeresis obviously always had been two dots - indicating two different
sounds. The greek word «diairesis» means «splitting up, dividing, cutting up»
(and it belongs to same field as «heretic» meaning division that separates
from the others).
So confusion of both is only coming from the reduction of the two strokes to
two points.
As german language for a long time has been associated and developped in
brokenscript (with strokes) and on the other hand latin script evolved without
a sign for «umlaut» the confusion began, when the two strokes where taken from
broken script to latin script and interpreted as points."
[http://www.typophile.com/node/13181]

In the few blackletter ("Fraktur") books I possess I find round dots or
dots with an upside-down drop shape (one pointed corner pointing
downwards), both far from looking like strokes or accents. As there is a
great variety of blackletter script design, there are certainly some that
have strokes.

Real old broken scripts have indeed the little letter e:

Loading Image...
Loading Image...

Since then time when Latin script ("Antiqua") was introduced for German
(about since the 1880s with a long transition period until the 1940s), I
have never seen other printed umlaut dots than round ones, identical to a
diaeresis.

As to the question in the subject: both "öo" and "oö" should be comparably
infrequent to the already discussed "aö". Well, there are some Greek loans
starting with "homöo-" (homeo-).

[Andy]

In message
<***@lxhri01.lrz.lrz-muenchen.de>, Helmut
Richter <hhr-***@web.de> wrote
[

Post by Helmut Richter
In the few blackletter ("Fraktur") books I possess I find round dots or
dots with an upside-down drop shape (one pointed corner pointing
downwards), both far from looking like strokes or accents.

My oldest is a printed Law from 1784; this uses a reversed comma - ie a
, but with the tail pointing right instead of left.

[Helmut Richter]

My oldest is a printed Law from 1784; this uses a reversed comma - ie a , but
with the tail pointing right instead of left.

That is, the shape of a small letter e.

[Andy]

In message

Post by Helmut Richter

My oldest is a printed Law from 1784; this uses a reversed comma - ie a , but
with the tail pointing right instead of left.

That is, the shape of a small letter e.

Only if written with a big pen - the top is solid.

[Einde O'Callaghan]

Post by Andy
In message

Post by Helmut Richter

My oldest is a printed Law from 1784; this uses a reversed comma - ie a , but
with the tail pointing right instead of left.

That is, the shape of a small letter e.

Only if written with a big pen - the top is solid.

Well quills aren't exactly fineliners - and the shapes of letters in
Fraktur follow very much the lines of this script as written with a quill.

Gruß, Einde O'Callaghan

[Adam Funk]

Post by Helmut Richter
In the few blackletter ("Fraktur") books I possess I find round dots or
dots with an upside-down drop shape (one pointed corner pointing
downwards), both far from looking like strokes or accents. As there is a
great variety of blackletter script design, there are certainly some that
have strokes.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Initialen.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/NZZ_Erstausgabe_Titelseite.jpg
Since then time when Latin script ("Antiqua") was introduced for German
(about since the 1880s with a long transition period until the 1940s), I
have never seen other printed umlaut dots than round ones, identical to a
diaeresis.

Thanks for the information and the interesting samples.

BTW, the cover and liner notes of the album _Haus der Lüge_ are
printed in Antiqua (all in upper-case) with an E inside the U for Ü,
as well as Æ (AE digraph) for Ä and Œ (OE digraph) for Ö.

I've seen little "e"s over the vowels in facsimiles of old German
books, but were these digraphs ever used, or are they Einstürzende
Neubauten's innovation?

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by Prisoner at War
Say, I wonder what our Kollegen over at AUG think? Or even
comp.fonts, for that matter!

As I already summarized earlier this year in
<g0cf09$1nsi$***@kemoauc.mips.inka.de>:

------->
In German, the umlaut diacritic is added to vowel characters to
indicate that the vowel is fronted/raised, e.g. [a] -> [E].
Originally, this was marked with an 'e' written above the vowel.
Over time this 'e' was reduced to a pair of strokes.

In Greek, the diaeresis or trema signifies that two adjacent vowels
are pronounced separately. The marking for this is a pair of dots
above the second vowel.

Modern typefaces and computer character sets have conflated these
two different diacritics. They are now usually both represented
by a pair of dots, and computer character sets provide only a single
encoding for both of them.
<-------

[Adam Funk]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Adam Funk
BTW, it's not an "umlaut" in this case but a "diaeresis", even though
the symbol is the same.

Not quite the same. An umlaut consists of two straight short lines
(much like a straight double quotation mark "), and derives from the
appearance of an old-fashioned handwritten German e (which looks more
like a u than an e to modern eyes). A diaeresis consists of two dots.

In Fraktura, definitely. In German handwriting, I think so.

For Antiqua, are you sure? I've just had a quick but close look at a
few late-twentieth-century books, in German printed in Germany and in
French printed in France, and I really can't tell the difference
between those doodahs.

Also, aren't the Unicode glyphs the same? (I know the Hungarian ones
are *really* different.)

[Prisoner at War]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden

Post by Adam Funk
BTW, it's not an "umlaut" in this case but a "diaeresis", even though
the symbol is the same.

Not quite the same. An umlaut consists of two straight short lines
(much like a straight double quotation mark "), and derives from the
appearance of an old-fashioned handwritten German e (which looks more
like a u than an e to modern eyes). A diaeresis consists of two dots.

In Fraktura, definitely.  In German handwriting, I think so.  
For Antiqua, are you sure?  I've just had a quick but close look at a
few late-twentieth-century books, in German printed in Germany and in
French printed in France, and I really can't tell the difference
between those doodahs.
Also, aren't the Unicode glyphs the same?  (I know the Hungarian ones
are *really* different.)
--
hmmmm: sounds like the same DLL hell problem my cousin had.  try
deleting all DLLs in your Windows/system32 directory and see what
happens.                                           (Bryce Utting)

Well, I know that German handwriting treats umlauts as a "line" (or
whatever the correct term is) over the vowel, in the manner of
beginners' Latin textbooks.

[Helmut Richter]

Also, aren't the Unicode glyphs the same?  (I know the Hungarian ones
are *really* different.)

Hungarian has the identical letters ö und ü as German for the two short
vowels that are also written in German as ö and ü. Other than in German,
all long vowels are marked with an acute accent in Hungarian. So the long
versions of ö and ü -- and only these -- get two acute accents instead of
dots.

[Adam Funk]

Post by Helmut Richter

Also, aren't the Unicode glyphs the same?  (I know the Hungarian ones
are *really* different.)

Hungarian has the identical letters ö und ü as German for the two short
vowels that are also written in German as ö and ü. Other than in German,
all long vowels are marked with an acute accent in Hungarian. So the long
versions of ö and ü -- and only these -- get two acute accents instead of
dots.

Oops, thanks for the correction.

Everything I know about Hungarian I learned from reading a book about
Paul [sic] Erdős. <g>

[Helmut Richter]

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Helmut Richter
Hungarian has the identical letters ö und ü as German for the two short
vowels that are also written in German as ö and ü. Other than in German,
all long vowels are marked with an acute accent in Hungarian. So the long
versions of ö and ü -- and only these -- get two acute accents instead of
dots.

Oops, thanks for the correction.
Everything I know about Hungarian I learned from reading a book about
Paul [sic] Erdos. <g>

... who has in his name that long ö with the double acute accents. Written
in SAMPA <http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/>, his name is pronounced
["Erd2:S].

[Dick Margulis]

Post by Adam Funk

Post by Helmut Richter
Hungarian has the identical letters ö und ü as German for the two short
vowels that are also written in German as ö and ü. Other than in German,
all long vowels are marked with an acute accent in Hungarian. So the long
versions of ö and ü -- and only these -- get two acute accents instead of
dots.

Oops, thanks for the correction.
Everything I know about Hungarian I learned from reading a book about
Paul [sic] Erdos. <g>

.... who has in his name that long ö with the double acute accents. Written
in SAMPA <http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/>, his name is pronounced
["Erd2:S].

Helmut,

I'm not sure where the double acute accents got stripped from Adam's
post, but they were present when I read his post in my newsreader and
apparently not present when you read his post in yours. This may be
something happening upstream from you or on your own system.

Just fyi, in case you want to track down the problem.

Dick

[Helmut Richter]

I'm not sure where the double acute accents got stripped from Adam's post, but
they were present when I read his post in my newsreader and apparently not
present when you read his post in yours. This may be something happening
upstream from you or on your own system.

Yes, they are present, and I can see them when dumping the news posting to
a file and looking at it with another program than the newsreader, pine.
Pine is half-aware of UTF-8 (unable to display UTF-8 characters but able
to find ISO-8859-1 equivalents for many for them). Thus, the most frequent
non-ASCII characters get displayed correctly even when they come in as
UTF-8, and I am not used to check character codes.

I should have checked.

[Adam Funk]

Post by Helmut Richter

I'm not sure where the double acute accents got stripped from Adam's post, but
they were present when I read his post in my newsreader and apparently not
present when you read his post in yours. This may be something happening
upstream from you or on your own system.

Yes, they are present, and I can see them when dumping the news posting to
a file and looking at it with another program than the newsreader, pine.
Pine is half-aware of UTF-8 (unable to display UTF-8 characters but able
to find ISO-8859-1 equivalents for many for them). Thus, the most frequent
non-ASCII characters get displayed correctly even when they come in as
UTF-8, and I am not used to check character codes.
I should have checked.

That's OK. You made me go back and double-check what I'd posted,
since I'd carefully [tried to] put them there!

[Christian Weisgerber]

Post by Prisoner at War
Well, I know that German handwriting treats umlauts as a "line" (or
whatever the correct term is) over the vowel, in the manner of
beginners' Latin textbooks.

That's one variant. You'll also find the umlaut diacritic written
as strokes and as dots.

(I grew up using strokes. My fifth to sixth grade German teacher
was adamant that students used strokes rather than dots.)

[Prisoner at War]

<snip>
Not quite the same. An umlaut consists of two straight short lines
(much like a straight double quotation mark "), and derives from the
appearance of an old-fashioned handwritten German e (which looks more
like a u than an e to modern eyes). A diaeresis consists of two dots.
--
athel

Hey, very interesting bit of typographical history; thanks!

[Prisoner at War]

Thanks, yes, diaeresis! I knew it wasn't an umlaut but I have trouble
pronouncing -- and typing! -- "diaeresis".... ^_^


Thanks to all for the reminder; much appreciated!

<snip>
BTW, it's not an "umlaut" in this case but a "diaeresis", even though
the symbol is the same.  An umlaut marks a vowel change in German ("ü"
is pronounced differently from "u") whereas a diaeresis marks a
separation between two vowels ("coöperate" as opposed to "chicken
coop") in English (or in French, where it's called a "tréma").
--
"It is the role of librarians to keep government running in difficult
times," replied Dramoren.  "Librarians are the last line of defence
against chaos."                                       (McMullen 2001)

[Adam Funk]

Post by Prisoner at War
Thanks, yes, diaeresis! I knew it wasn't an umlaut but I have trouble
pronouncing -- and typing! -- "diaeresis".... ^_^

Old joke:

A teacher received a note from a parent that said, "Please excuse
Fred from being absent yesterday. He had diahre [crossed out] dyrea
[crossed out] direathe [crossed out] the shits."