What's cool is that I just read this the a little while ago when looking up accents. I was trying to figure out what the circumflex actually represented because it doesn't change the way you pronounce anything in French. Just didn't see the difference between notre and la nôtre besides the meaning. It makes total sense when you think about it. I never would have guessed that about mañana. Though. I wonder if that's something I'd learn in a linguistics class. I've been thinking about taking one.
It might be, depending on which class one takes. When you know that the ñ represents an older form of double N, you see that it falls into line more consistently with the other modified phonemes in Spanish represented by double letters like the double L of lluvia and the double R of carro.
Is there a colder word in the English dictionary that "adequate"? A teacher marks your exercise book. You put blood and tears into it. They tick your answer and write beside it, "Adequate"....Ouch
That is ouch. And you're correct, adequate is so... distanced. Like the teacher didn't deign to the chummy, work-a-day honesty of average or acceptable.
