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I pointed out that it's in use now by a few periodicals, so of course it's not dead. > makes the language better Do you plan to resume using the word "hôtel"?

I pointed out that it's in use now by a few periodicals, so of course it's not dead. > makes the language better Do you plan to resume using the word "hôtel"? ("The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel .) > in the age of printing presses and lead type Here's an image for a Linotype machine. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Linotype_keyboard_with_Star_Quadder_attachment.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Linotype... . It has keys for the ligatures ﬂ, ﬀ, ﬃ, and ℔ (!). [1] It also has the ligatures œ (handy when spelling œvre or diarrhœa), and æ (for ægis, dæmon, æther, and mediæval). To double-check, I pulled up a British book from 1846, "Printing apparatus for the use of amateurs : containing full and practical instructions for the use of Cowper's parlour printing press" from archive.org. Page 19 shows a type case layout (see https://archive.org/details/printingapparatu00holtrich/page/18/mode/2up?q=%22type+case%22&view=theater https://archive.org/details/printingapparatu00holtrich/page/... ), again with æ, œ, ﬂ, ﬀ, and ﬃ, as well as ﬁ and ﬄ. So the idea that printing presses and lead type caused the orthography "coördinate" to disappear seems ... in need of further supporting evidence. At the very least, it seems "ö" was less common than "æ" or "œ", and the latter two were commonly available in type cases, yet certainly died out in normal use. FWIW, Google n-grams suggests that the use of "coördinate" seems to have peaked in the 1920s, well after the rise of Linotype. And that there was never a time was it was more frequent than "coordinate". https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=co%C3%B6rdinate%2Ccoordinate&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cco%C3%B6rdinate%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccoordinate%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Cco%C3%B6rdinate%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccoordinate%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=co%C3%B6rdinat... Google Books finds about 300 books in the 19th century with "coördinate" and also about 300 with "coordinate". [1] I verified ℔ by looking at a Linotype book, at https://archive.org/details/LinotypeKeyboardPractice/page/n9/mode/2up?q=linotype+keyboard&view=theater https://archive.org/details/LinotypeKeyboardPractice/page/n9... .

WorldMaker 5y ago
>> makes the language better > Do you plan to resume using the word "hôtel"? ("The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel .) How does that actually archaic spelling of "hotel" help make the language better? The diaresis helps disambiguate the words coop (housing for chickens) and coöp (a business built as a coöperative). That's just one example. The rest of your post has some interesting points, though it's most interesting to me here because it seems to directly conflict with the "old" sense of the word "archaic" from the above discussion if it's a 19th/20th Century invention. It would imply to me the use of the word "archaic" is a bad editorial choice in the Wikipedia article and its primary sources on that word choice maybe not be the most reliable. (Of two citations, the one that actually uses the word "archaic" is a personal blog post, versus the Fowler's Modern English citation simply says "often dropped" and doesn't editorialize but does "blame" "often not on modern keyboards".)
- eesmith 5y ago
  You wrote "it is time we bring back the common usage of the diareses in English." When was it in common usage? You can't "go back" to something that never existed. And I showed it doesn't appear to be common in the 1800s. I can totally blame printing for contributing to the loss of Þ, but by the 1400s it was growing less common. It in turn had replaced ð in Old English, showing the printing press isn't the only thing which can change orthography. But I don't see how the printing press a contributing factor to the change in popularity of ö, which you asserted was the case. > The diaresis helps disambiguate FWIW, I use "co-op" when I want to disambiguate that case. There are two issues here. One is "use the diareses in teaching", and the other is "bring back the common usage." Your example only justifies the first. Consider Hebrew orthography. It does not indicate vowels. However, niqqud "is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. ... In modern Israeli orthography niqqud is seldom used, except in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants to Israel ... [although] it no longer reflects the current pronunciation.." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud Arabic orthography is similar. "Tashkīl is optional to represent missing vowels and consonant length. Modern Arabic is always written with the i‘jām—consonant pointing, but only religious texts, children's books and works for learners are written with the full tashkīl—vowel guides and consonant length." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics#harakat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics#harakat Clearly pedagogy can use a variant orthography that is not in common use! But if you go that route, why limit yourself to diaresis? English can use a grave accent to indicate if a vowel is to be pronounced ("learned" vs. "learnèd"). This is mostly in poetry and lyrics. A unified pedagogy might use "coôp" instead of "coöp". English can use an acute accent to indicate when an vowel is not silent. (The drink "maté", when the original Spanish is "mate"). For teaching, the acute can be used to disambiguate between words with the same spelling but different stress ("cónvert" vs. "convért" or "désert" vs. "desért"). And if we're talking about teaching ambiguous words, what about words like "bow" ("ribbon and bow" vs. "the ship's bow") and "close" ("close the door" vs "it was a close games")? I don't even have a notation, outside of IPA, to represent those. This means diaresis addresses only a small fraction of the ambiguity in English orthography. Is it really worthwhile to give extra attention on this one facet, and reduce time spent on other facets?

WorldMaker 5y ago

>> makes the language better > Do you plan to resume using the word "hôtel"? ("The French spelling, with the circumflex, was also used in English, but is now rare" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel .) How does that actually archaic spelling of "hotel" help make the language better? The diaresis helps disambiguate the words coop (housing for chickens) and coöp (a business built as a coöperative). That's just one example. The rest of your post has some interesting points, though it's most interesting to me here because it seems to directly conflict with the "old" sense of the word "archaic" from the above discussion if it's a 19th/20th Century invention. It would imply to me the use of the word "archaic" is a bad editorial choice in the Wikipedia article and its primary sources on that word choice maybe not be the most reliable. (Of two citations, the one that actually uses the word "archaic" is a personal blog post, versus the Fowler's Modern English citation simply says "often dropped" and doesn't editorialize but does "blame" "often not on modern keyboards".)

eesmith 5y ago
You wrote "it is time we bring back the common usage of the diareses in English." When was it in common usage? You can't "go back" to something that never existed. And I showed it doesn't appear to be common in the 1800s. I can totally blame printing for contributing to the loss of Þ, but by the 1400s it was growing less common. It in turn had replaced ð in Old English, showing the printing press isn't the only thing which can change orthography. But I don't see how the printing press a contributing factor to the change in popularity of ö, which you asserted was the case. > The diaresis helps disambiguate FWIW, I use "co-op" when I want to disambiguate that case. There are two issues here. One is "use the diareses in teaching", and the other is "bring back the common usage." Your example only justifies the first. Consider Hebrew orthography. It does not indicate vowels. However, niqqud "is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. ... In modern Israeli orthography niqqud is seldom used, except in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants to Israel ... [although] it no longer reflects the current pronunciation.." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niqqud Arabic orthography is similar. "Tashkīl is optional to represent missing vowels and consonant length. Modern Arabic is always written with the i‘jām—consonant pointing, but only religious texts, children's books and works for learners are written with the full tashkīl—vowel guides and consonant length." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics#harakat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_diacritics#harakat Clearly pedagogy can use a variant orthography that is not in common use! But if you go that route, why limit yourself to diaresis? English can use a grave accent to indicate if a vowel is to be pronounced ("learned" vs. "learnèd"). This is mostly in poetry and lyrics. A unified pedagogy might use "coôp" instead of "coöp". English can use an acute accent to indicate when an vowel is not silent. (The drink "maté", when the original Spanish is "mate"). For teaching, the acute can be used to disambiguate between words with the same spelling but different stress ("cónvert" vs. "convért" or "désert" vs. "desért"). And if we're talking about teaching ambiguous words, what about words like "bow" ("ribbon and bow" vs. "the ship's bow") and "close" ("close the door" vs "it was a close games")? I don't even have a notation, outside of IPA, to represent those. This means diaresis addresses only a small fraction of the ambiguity in English orthography. Is it really worthwhile to give extra attention on this one facet, and reduce time spent on other facets?