4 ms·
Not related to the actual article, but I got stuck on the word "coöperating". Originally, I thought the "Umlaut" is a typo or a mistake, but, according to wikt
by runn1ng 11y ago
Not related to the actual article, but I got stuck on the word "coöperating".
Originally, I thought the "Umlaut" is a typo or a mistake, but, according to wiktionary, "coöperate" is an actual word! I still feel like pronouncing the second "ö" like in German though.
- msbarnett 11y agoThe New Yorker has a famously idiosyncratic house style, which includes the use of diaereses on doubled vowels: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Yorker#Style https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Yorker#Style
- nostromo 11y agoIt's called a diaeresis. Used in this way, a diaeresis tells the reader that it's pronounced as "co op" and not "coop". http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-t... Most people would just write "co-op" nowadays -- I've only ever seen this in the New Yorker.
- rdancer 11y agoJust to add further explanation, it's the same reason we write naïve: to hint it is to be pronounced /na-yeev/, not /neivə/.
- dllthomas 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacritic#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diacritic#English "English speakers and writers once used the diaeresis more often than now in words such as coöperation (from Fr. coopération), zoölogy (from Grk. zoologia), and seeër (now more commonly see-er or simply seer), but this practice has become far less common. The New Yorker magazine is a major publication that uses it."
- monochromatic 11y agoIt's just the New Yorker being pedantic. It's a fight I sometimes agree with, but there's no way "coöperating" is ever going to become standard--it's always going to look weird to the vast majority of readers.