Michael Everson wrote:
> Ar 12:56 -0700 1999-07-20, scríobh A. Vine:
>
>
> >Feel free to spell at will, but not including the accents is as correct as
> >including them.
>
> In good typography it is considered better to include them. One should
> always strive for good typography. I hope everyone reading this feels
> guilty if they leave out the cedilla the next time they write "façade".
>
>
Which English are we talking about? Native speaker speaking here, midwestern US
clan. The acute (or is it breve?) accent is ok in certain words such as decor and
resume, but I can predict with high confidence that nobody in my tribe without a
couple years of high school French will feel confident about which way the accent
should lean. I'm pretty sure I was not taught these marks in elementary school. I
was taught that foreign words are italized, so if you want the cedilla please
italicize. In this region writing "facade" with a cedilla would be akin to rolling
ones Rrr's in Spanish names, if not quite so insufferably pompous. Politically
correct radio personalities tend to attempt it, sadly, but the rest of us are
content with our native language, which has neither the rolled r nor the cedilla.
> >You can try to be prescriptivist with living languages, but they will
> >continue to evolve.
>
> Of course orthography is prescriptivist. There are correct ways to spell
> and incorrect ways to spell. For a subset of the words in our language,
> there are preferred and less-preferred forms.
>
Not in English. Orthography has always been gloriously chaotic. "Correct"
spelling is like "correct" grammar, something up with which schoolmasters will not
put, but which <i>la gente</i> gladly put up with. The tests are 1) does your
spellling get yer msg acrost?, and 2) whom do you wish to impress?
Sincerely,
Gregg
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:48 EDT