Are diacritic marks optional?

Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by dillseed, May 23, 2014.

  1. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Hmm... Must have missed that page in my course book. :p
    In that case, I would sort bow into the category of confusing words since the pronunciation should differ with the context.
     
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  2. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    It gets worse! Bow, the verb, is a homonym with bough, meaning large branch of a tree.

    So, you can make bow out of a bough, and if you do, you should definitely bow before the tree that gave up that bough to make your bow, out of respect and gratitude. :p
     
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  3. sunsplash

    sunsplash Bona fide beach bum

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    Which is where I was going in my first post with Vovô and Vovó...take the accents away and you can't tell the difference. English isn't always so clear. Taking a bow in the woods gives no indication of context by itself.

    And the bow of a ship is the same pronunciation as take a bow before the audience. So of the single spelling there are two pronunciations and three definitions. Fun! :wtf:
     
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  4. sunsplash

    sunsplash Bona fide beach bum

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    I'm sure this has been shared elsewhere here but it's fitting again! Makes me both snicker and sigh every time.

    Gerard Nolst Trenité - The Chaos (1922)
    Dearest creature in creation
    Studying English pronunciation,
    I will teach you in my verse
    Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

    I will keep you, Susy, busy,
    Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
    Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
    Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

    Pray, console your loving poet,
    Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
    Just compare heart, hear and heard,
    Dies and diet, lord and word.

    Sword and sward, retain and Britain
    (Mind the latter how it's written).
    Made has not the sound of bade,
    Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

    Now I surely will not plague you
    With such words as vague and ague,
    But be careful how you speak,
    Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

    Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
    Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
    Woven, oven, how and low,
    Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

    Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
    Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
    Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
    Missiles, similes, reviles.

    Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
    Same, examining, but mining,
    Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
    Solar, mica, war and far.

    From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
    Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
    Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
    Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

    One, anemone, Balmoral,
    Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
    Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
    Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

    Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
    Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
    This phonetic labyrinth
    Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

    Have you ever yet endeavoured
    To pronounce revered and severed,
    Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
    Peter, petrol and patrol?

    Billet does not end like ballet;
    Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
    Blood and flood are not like food,
    Nor is mould like should and would.

    Banquet is not nearly parquet,
    Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
    Discount, viscount, load and broad,
    Toward, to forward, to reward,

    Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
    Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
    Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
    Friend and fiend, alive and live.

    Is your r correct in higher?
    Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
    Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
    Buoyant, minute, but minute.

    Say abscission with precision,
    Now: position and transition;
    Would it tally with my rhyme
    If I mentioned paradigm?

    Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
    But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
    Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
    Rabies, but lullabies.

    Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
    Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
    You'll envelop lists, I hope,
    In a linen envelope.

    Would you like some more? You'll have it!
    Affidavit, David, davit.
    To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
    Does not sound like Czech but ache.

    Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
    Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
    We say hallowed, but allowed,
    People, leopard, towed but vowed.

    Mark the difference, moreover,
    Between mover, plover, Dover.
    Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
    Chalice, but police and lice,

    Camel, constable, unstable,
    Principle, disciple, label.
    Petal, penal, and canal,
    Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

    Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
    Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
    But it is not hard to tell
    Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

    Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
    Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
    Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
    Senator, spectator, mayor,

    Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
    Has the a of drachm and hammer.
    Pussy, hussy and possess,
    Desert, but desert, address.

    Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
    Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
    Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
    Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

    "Solder, soldier!Blood is thicker",
    Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
    Making, it is sad but true,
    In bravado, much ado.

    Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
    Neither does devour with clangour.
    Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
    Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

    Arsenic, specific, scenic,
    Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
    Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
    Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

    Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
    Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
    Mind! Meandering but mean,
    Valentine and magazine.

    And I bet you, dear, a penny,
    You say mani-(fold) like many,
    Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
    Tier (one who ties), but tier.

    Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
    Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
    Prison, bison, treasure trove,
    Treason, hover, cover, cove,

    Perseverance, severance. Ribald
    Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
    Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
    Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

    Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
    And distinguish buffet, buffet;
    Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
    Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

    Say in sounds correct and sterling
    Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
    Evil, devil, mezzotint,
    Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

    Now you need not pay attention
    To such sounds as I don't mention,
    Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
    Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

    Nor are proper names included,
    Though I often heard, as you did,
    Funny rhymes to unicorn,
    Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

    No, my maiden, coy and comely,
    I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
    No. Yet Froude compared with proud
    Is no better than McLeod.

    But mind trivial and vial,
    Tripod, menial, denial,
    Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
    Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

    Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
    May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
    But you're not supposed to say
    Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

    Had this invalid invalid
    Worthless documents? How pallid,
    How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
    When for Portsmouth I had booked!

    Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
    Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
    Episodes, antipodes,
    Acquiesce, and obsequies.

    Please don't monkey with the geyser,
    Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
    Rather say in accents pure:
    Nature, stature and mature.

    Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
    Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
    Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
    Wan, sedan and artisan.

    The th will surely trouble you
    More than r, ch or w.
    Say then these phonetic gems:
    Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

    Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
    There are more but I forget 'em-
    Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
    Lighten your anxiety.

    The archaic word albeit
    Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
    With and forthwith, one has voice,
    One has not, you make your choice.

    Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
    Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
    Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
    Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

    Hero, heron, query, very,
    Parry, tarry fury, bury,
    Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
    Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

    Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
    Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
    Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
    Puisne, truism, use, to use?

    Though the difference seems little,
    We say actual, but victual,
    Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
    Put, nut, granite, and unite.

    Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
    Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
    Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
    Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

    Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
    Science, conscience, scientific;
    Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
    Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

    Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
    Next omit, which differs from it
    Bona fide, alibi
    Gyrate, dowry and awry.

    Sea, idea, guinea, area,
    Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
    Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
    Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

    Compare alien with Italian,
    Dandelion with battalion,
    Rally with ally; yea, ye,
    Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

    Say aver, but ever, fever,
    Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
    Never guess-it is not safe,
    We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

    Starry, granary, canary,
    Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
    Face, but preface, then grimace,
    Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

    Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
    Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
    Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
    Do not rhyme with here but heir.

    Mind the o of off and often
    Which may be pronounced as orphan,
    With the sound of saw and sauce;
    Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

    Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
    Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
    Respite, spite, consent, resent.
    Liable, but Parliament.

    Seven is right, but so is even,
    Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
    Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
    Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

    A of valour, vapid vapour,
    S of news (compare newspaper),
    G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
    I of antichrist and grist,

    Differ like diverse and divers,
    Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
    Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
    Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

    Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
    Is a paling, stout and spiky.
    Won't it make you lose your wits
    Writing groats and saying "grits"?

    It's a dark abyss or tunnel
    Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
    Islington, and Isle of Wight,
    Housewife, verdict and indict.

    Don't you think so, reader, rather,
    Saying lather, bather, father?
    Finally, which rhymes with enough,
    Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

    Hiccough has the sound of sup...
    My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
     
  5. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    And this is why I have been and ever will be a proponent for spelling reform in English. It doesn't need to be 100%, but there are some seriously idiosyncratic spellings that are still there out of sheer lassitude on our part.

    This: Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

    And: I before E, except after C, unless it says A as in neighbor and weigh or if it's weird science.

    Those aren't rules; that's just taking the piss. :rolleyes: Someone's having fun with us, that's all. :wtf:
     
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  6. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Sounds like Swedish. It feels like our language has more exceptions that cases that follow the rules... There are for instance some things that are completely impossible to say in Swedish (e.g. a scared lion) since some Swedish adjectives simply can't be conjugated in all forms.
     
  7. dillseed

    dillseed Active Member

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    Holy cow! I just got home from work and saw fifty-five replies in one day! Damn!
     
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  8. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    LOL :) It was a good conversation. It went places. ;)
     
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  9. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    And it was most interesting, being a young swede discussing English grammar with a native English speaker doing language stuff for a living. ;)
     
  10. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Is it going to make me look like a douche bag if I'm über anal about diacritics? Here on the forum I can indulge myself and use them with abandon and not be judged, but out there I feel like I'm actually making people smirk (like my English professor).

    Lol, we have a similar thing in Finnish. Writing the words separately doesn't ruin the pronunciation but it messes up with meaning and rhythm. I hate it when people can't recognize compound words or are just too lazy to write them together.

    Sorry, this is OT, but, since you're Swedish I gotta ask, how do you pronounce furumo? It's a place @T.Trian and I frequent, and I'm yet to figure out the correct pronunciation (fur is a pine, but... the rest :confused:).
     
  11. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Umm... A Swedish name for a graveyard in the middle of Finland?

    Anyway, did some quick research. As you say, fur is indeed a pine tree, however furumo consists of the two words furu and mo. Furu is the name for the wood you get from pine trees and mo is (apparently) a sandy soil type or a type of forest (moskog). So I suppose that furumo would mean something like "sandy soil for pine trees" or "pine tree forest". But then, I'd never heard of this little word before.
    As for the pronunciation, I have no idea how to write it out more than furu-mo.

    Edited to add: This is, for the sake of non-Scandinavians, one such case where we write words together.
     
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  12. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Yes, thank you! Furu-mo! Of course no one calls it that, they call it Honkanummi, probably because people don't know how to say the Swedish name, so I never figured out how to say it in Swedish o_O. We also have an island called Husö, and I think it should be pronounced Hus-ö, but we say hu-sö.
    I live in Southern Finland (Vanda is next to Helsingfors), so all place names have to be in Swedish and Finnish.
     
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  13. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Just FYI (and rather further off topic) in English fir is another word for a pine.
     
  14. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Yeah, I know 'fir', too. Fur and fir are probably related (I could wiktionary this, but can't be arsed right now), while the Finnish equivalents of course look nothing like their Swedish/English counterparts (there's a shocker).

    By the way, I agree that to a layman the nigh hypercorrect usage of diacritics really might not matter, and could even look confusing. I'm quite sure I've seen 'resume' (as in CV) more often than résumé in articles and official contexts, for example. In any case, Anglophones pronounce 'résumé' differently than Francophones, so to be anal about just the spelling but not the pronunciation seems a tad strange. I also gotta say that when a translator says they prefer certain spelling variaties, it is for a good reason. Professional translators have done their homework and then some, and are usually very good at making word/spelling choices. On the other hand; different choices for different texts, so for one's fictional story, sticking with the diacritics might make more sense than for a translator to use them in e.g. an informative text.
     
  15. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

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    it is easier... use ms word and keep the 'symbol' icon [it's the greek letter, omega--Ω] on your document's tool bar... then you can just click on it, select the letter with the mark you want, click on it and have it appear in your text...

    btw, folks, the ˄ over a letter is a 'circumflex'... not a 'cercumflex'... ;)
     
  16. lostinwebspace

    lostinwebspace Active Member

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  17. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

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    re 'noel' it seems english arbiters don't feel the circumflex, cedilla, or umlaut are needed on words that would include them, in their original language's form... i don't see the reasoning there, but then english is the most illogically disorderly language ever assembled, so why expect logic to be applied?

    same goes for the spanish tilde...
     
  18. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    Bow window. There's another definition for you. (a window that bows out from the wall the same shape as a bow that shoots arrows - just the window part though, if the wall bellow the window bows out too, then it's called a bay window)
     
  19. sunsplash

    sunsplash Bona fide beach bum

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    I've never heard of that before...bay window, sure...never a bow! Gotta love the English language...
     
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  20. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    This is what happens when your hubs works in the building industry! :)
     
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  21. Renee J

    Renee J Senior Member

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    My name, Renee, doesn't have a diacritic mark. But, many people with that name do use one. A diacritic mark might have prevented people from pronouncing it, re-nee, instead of re-nay. But, I'm forty now and a bit old for changing how I write my name.
     
  22. Mike Kobernus

    Mike Kobernus Senior Member

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    It can be crucial sometimes. For a word like cafe, perhaps not so much. But take a look at this word. Expose or Exposé.

    Quite a difference in meaning.
     
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  23. Vandor76

    Vandor76 Senior Member

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    Sometimes it is really practical to leave the diacritic marks out and I always do that with Hungarian words. In my opinion writing "resume" is a much better option than taking the risk that the recipient of my mail will see something like " r█sum█ " or " résumé ".
     
  24. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Send your mail as a PDF-file, and that won't be a problem. ;)
     
  25. Vandor76

    Vandor76 Senior Member

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    Yeahh, but I will start to receive "Unsubscribe" letters :)
     

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