| ▲ | jareklupinski 6 hours ago |
| > reëlection > reënacted whats with the ree-s in the article... |
|
| ▲ | nerevarthelame 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| It's a diacritic marker that indicates how the word is supposed to be pronounced, with a syllable break on the marked letters - as though readers might get confused and think the word is pronounced "reel-ection" as opposed to "re-election." It's a pretty archaic practice, but The New Yorker persists. They have a lot of unusual stylistic preferences, like preferring the spelling "vender" over "vendor," which also occurs in this article. A more common example of the diaeresis would be the name "Zoë" - the "ë" indicates the pronunciation is "zoe-y" (2 syllables) not "zoe" (1 syllable). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)#English |
| |
| ▲ | irdc an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | As a Dutch person, what’s interesting to me is how this exact rule applies to Dutch. Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice it while reading the article… | |
| ▲ | jareklupinski 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | til, thank you! i guess it's important for them we all coöperate on pröper spek :P thought i was seeing this because some ebooks also have missing/poorly substituted ligatures for me |
|
|
| ▲ | retrac 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Some style guides recommend the diaeresis over doubled vowels when they are pronounced separately. The idea is I believe from French: maïs, Noël, etc. I was taught to do it that way in public school here in Canada in the 90s; it is the textbook proper way to spell words like coördination. I was also taught that no one actually spells it that way and that co-ordination and coordination are both fine and far more common. |
| |
| ▲ | derriz an hour ago | parent [-] | | > The idea is I believe from French: maïs, Noël, etc. Apropos of nothing, except that it will allow me to vent a bit, it also changes the rule for the pronunciation of the last consonant of French words. Normally the lack of a trailing "e" would mean the last consonant is not-sounded but the diaeresis changes it: maïs/"my-isz", Noël/"noh-ell", etc. And yes Moët (the champagne) is pronounced "moh-ett" in France and by French speakers. It's incredibly annoying having someone subtly but in a slightly superior manner "correct" your pronunciation by repeating the mispronunciation right after you've pronounced it correctly - "sure, I'll order some some MOHAY". Outside I'm smiling and nodding pretending not to notice, inside I'm screaming "IT'S MOH-fcking-ETT MTHERF*KER - MOH-ETT." | | |
| ▲ | sebastiennight an hour ago | parent [-] | | > it also changes the rule for the pronunciation of the last consonant of French words. This was a very well explained distinction, with the exception of you using "Noël" as one of the examples, since "Noel" would still have a sounded "L". It would be weird to a French speaker but would most likely end up being pronounced somewhat like the English "null". > And yes Moët (the champagne) is pronounced "moh-ett" in France and by French speakers. My favorite Moët mispronunciation is one that it took me several months to understand: Russians pronounce it as if it was spelled in Cyrillic, so they say "mah- yacht". There is a famous MORGENSHTERN song which I only understood was about champagne when I saw the music video for the first time. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | enmyj 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| that's the New Yorker signature style |
| |
