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The whole article is fascinating, but this part was very surprising: > Shereshevsky avoided such things as reading the newspaper over breakfast because the fla

The whole article is fascinating, but this part was very surprising: > Shereshevsky avoided such things as reading the newspaper over breakfast because the flavors evoked by the printed words clashed with the taste of his meal. I've heard of synesthesia, but I never knew it could have real-life consequences like this. Unrelated: That's the first time I've seen the word "reëxperience" with an umlaut. Wiktionary has it as an "alternative form" [1]. And I found this Wikipedia article [2], which says you can use it in other words, like: coöperative, daïs and reëlect. And apparently it's called a "diaeresis". So that was interesting to learn. It's also interesting that the New Yorker must follow a style guide that requires diaereses. Oh wow, I just found the New Yorker article specifically about their usage of diaereses. [4] [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reexperience https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reexperience [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical_marks#Native_English_words https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_terms_with_diacritical... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic) [4] http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-t...

smegel 9y ago
> The grave accent and the diaeresis are the only diacritics native to Modern English (apart from diacritics used in loanwords, such as the acute accent, the cedilla, or the tilde). The use of both, however, is considered to be largely archaic.
MetallicCloud 9y ago
There is a documentary called 'Derek Tastes of Earwax' which is about synesthesia, where the main person in the documentary tastes words. He says during it that he finds it difficult to cook food and listen to people talk, because all the different signals become too much, and he needs to leave the room.
anyfoo 9y ago
To your point about the diaeresis: The New Yorker does it in every instance where two same vowels are disconnected in pronunciation. Quite consistently, as far as I know. Raymond Chen [1] does, too. [1] See how he writes "coöperation" e.g. here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130607-00/?p=4143 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130607-00/?p=... -- I always wondered whether that meant that he read the New Yorker.
Agentlien 9y ago
For some reason, diaeresis is very common in research papers, at least in papers on computer science and 3D rendering.
skrebbel 9y ago
Worthless trivia time! Diaereses are very popular in the Dutch language, because the language is full of consecutive vowels, which have a distinct sound. We're just not trained t guessing where to break syllables without help. If "cooperative" was a Dutch word and spelled like that, we'd say coo-perative, get confused, backtrack, oh wait co-operative ahyeah. For example, "ie" in "fiets" (bike) is pronounced like English "ee". But now imagine you're a sixteen year old deejay with big ambitions and you want a name people can remember you by. You come up with "Tiesto" which sounds cool, but all your friends would pronounce it "Teesto". Ok no biggie, "DJ Tiësto" it is. Another public favourite is the plural of sea (zee): zeeën. Leaving the dots, "zeeen" would make people very nervous - is it "ze-een" (she one) or "zee-en" (seas)?

smegel 9y ago

> The grave accent and the diaeresis are the only diacritics native to Modern English (apart from diacritics used in loanwords, such as the acute accent, the cedilla, or the tilde). The use of both, however, is considered to be largely archaic.

MetallicCloud 9y ago

There is a documentary called 'Derek Tastes of Earwax' which is about synesthesia, where the main person in the documentary tastes words. He says during it that he finds it difficult to cook food and listen to people talk, because all the different signals become too much, and he needs to leave the room.

anyfoo 9y ago

To your point about the diaeresis: The New Yorker does it in every instance where two same vowels are disconnected in pronunciation. Quite consistently, as far as I know. Raymond Chen [1] does, too. [1] See how he writes "coöperation" e.g. here: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130607-00/?p=4143 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20130607-00/?p=... -- I always wondered whether that meant that he read the New Yorker.

Agentlien 9y ago

For some reason, diaeresis is very common in research papers, at least in papers on computer science and 3D rendering.

skrebbel 9y ago

Worthless trivia time! Diaereses are very popular in the Dutch language, because the language is full of consecutive vowels, which have a distinct sound. We're just not trained t guessing where to break syllables without help. If "cooperative" was a Dutch word and spelled like that, we'd say coo-perative, get confused, backtrack, oh wait co-operative ahyeah. For example, "ie" in "fiets" (bike) is pronounced like English "ee". But now imagine you're a sixteen year old deejay with big ambitions and you want a name people can remember you by. You come up with "Tiesto" which sounds cool, but all your friends would pronounce it "Teesto". Ok no biggie, "DJ Tiësto" it is. Another public favourite is the plural of sea (zee): zeeën. Leaving the dots, "zeeen" would make people very nervous - is it "ze-een" (she one) or "zee-en" (seas)?