>
> I believe that there is an established sort order in English, which
> is to sort without regard to diacritics, or else we'd never find the
words!
> In English (American English more than British English), diacritics are
> considered optional, and it is common to see "naїve" written "naive", "San
> José" written "San Jose", etc. Especially amongst Americans, the two are
> considered equivalent, and I know of no word pair in all of English which
is
> separated only by a diacritic.
That depends what you mean by 'established' ;-)
The classic example is 'resume' and 'résumé'. These are, by now, two quite
distinct words, and the fact that there is no 'established' order is shown
by the fact that the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Version: 1.0.4,
Data version: 02.10.96s, January 1997, on disk) has them in the order:
'résumé', 'resume' while the New Oxford Dictionary of English (Clarendon
Press, 1998) has 'resume', 'resumé'. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (of
Current English, Clarendon Press, 1982, edited, as it happens, by a second
cousin of mine) also has 'resume', 'résumé'.
Evidently, we see here evidence that the diacritic on the first 'e' has
become optional since 1982, though not that on the second, presumably
because that 'e' might otherwise be supposed to be silent.
Reverting the question of order, the 'Guide to the New SOED' (a.k.a. Help)
reveals that:
<quote>
Entries are accessed in strict alphabetical order. ... ; a headword with an
accent or diacritic over a letter follows one consisting of the same
sequence of letters without. ...
The order of headwords which are spelled the same way but have different
parts of speech is as follows:
noun (abbreviated n.)
pronoun (abbreviated pron.)
adjective (abbreviated a.)
verb (abbreviated v.)
...
</quote>
And scrutiny of the two entries of interest reveals that 'résumé' is both a
noun and a verb, whereas 'resume' is only a verb.
Perhaps the ordering of 'résumé' before 'resume' is a mistake; perhaps not.
I can't ask my aforesaid second cousin, because he's no longer with us.
Who'd be a lexicographer?
Mike.
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J M Sykes Email: Mike.Sykes@acm.org
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Heald Green
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Cheshire SK8 3SN
UK Tel: (44) 161 437 5413
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