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| | Jonathon Delacour: Diacritical |
 | | A similar mark is used to indicate diaeresis in other languages, but the umlaut dots are very close to the letter’s body in a well-designed font, while the diaeresis dots are a bit further above—in computer screen fonts the difference is usually not noticeable, but in printed material it is. |
 | | The diaeresis is also occasionally used on native English words for the above purposes (as in “coöperate”, “reënact”, and the surname “Brontë”), but this usage has become very rare since the 1940s. |
 | | In the Seymour Hersh article, the diaeresis is used not only in the word “reëlection,” but also in “preëmptive,” “coördinate,” and “coöperation.” Interestingly, “cooperating”—as in “Most have been cooperating in the war on terrorism”—appears without a diaeresis, which suggests either an editorial error or that the diaeresis is not used in a present participle. |
| weblog.delacour.net /archives/2005/01/diacritical.php (1319 words) |
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