Editing Talk:1647: Diacritics

Not quite sure if and how to inlcude the fact, that the German writing of résumé is Resümee. So the ü used by Cueball/Randall ist not that far off. However in German the word is not used for a CV (or similar), but for conclusions / abstracts. [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 10:19, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:I have included it. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:: Thanks! [[Special:Contributions/162.158.90.212|162.158.90.212]] 08:36, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

:There is a newsgroup reading software called Forté Agent, which was popular in the past. It uses the same silly spelling as the title text. Might Randall be referring to it? http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php {{unsigned|Lou Crazy}}

OT but I'm pretty amazed that my browser renders ȩ̊́́́́̆.́́́ properly. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.223.131|108.162.223.131]] 11:09, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I doubt that Randall **forgets** to add the diacritics. My guess is that he is leaving it out due to habit or custom (or laziness), as accented characters often got mangled in emails at the Internet of yore. Just as some sysadmins here in .cz, me included. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.95.49|141.101.95.49]] 11:35, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:Well it fits with his error in hie what if that may explain this comic. It is no referenced, so I think he means that it is not his strength to put them right! --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Might have a relation with changes officially added to school manuals regarding the spelling of many words in french (removal of many accents), in order to simplify it that sparked some debate (1990 paper from Académie française in charge of normalizing/perfecting french language pushed by government few weeks(months?) ago). [[User:Zurgul|Zurgul]] ([[User talk:Zurgul|talk]]) 11:47, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

The top accent on the last e can be a caron [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caron]. It is hard to tell in hand-written text. [[User:Jkotek|Jkotek]] ([[User talk:Jkotek|talk]]) 12:18, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

In phonetics, you have to use many diacritics when describing unusual sounds narrowly. So you could end up with something like [ë̯̰̙̹̃́], which is a slightly rounded, nasalised, centralised, creaky-voiced open short e with retracted tongue root that has a high tone but does not serve as a syllable nucleus. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.222|162.158.91.222]] 13:32, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

''Forte'' means both loud and strong in both Italian and French --[[Special:Contributions/188.114.103.7|188.114.103.7]] 14:35, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:And also in music in English, so included that instead. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

When I first clicked on "explain xkcd" from Android app, I saw:

"@@@@@@@@ Pogo Game Technical Support Phone
Number USA ------ ((((((((- - - - ------Call us on
.
.
."
etc

I wondered whether it was part of the joke.  But now I see that it is gone.  I have a screenshot, but don't know how to include it. {{unsigned ip|108.162.238.83}}
:We have had a lot [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1647:_Diacritics&oldid=113270 of spam]. (Link is to version you saw). --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

This comic looks like a mild example of [http://www.marlborotech.com/Zalgo.html Zalgo text], of which the most famous example (at least in my corner of the universe) is the "don't parse html with regex" [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags/1732454#1732454 answer on StackOverflow.] [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.53|173.245.54.53]] 17:42, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:I was just going to mention the Zalgo-iness. You think this was intentional? <span style="background:#0064de;font-size:12px;padding:4px 12px;border-radius:8px;">[[User talk:AgentMuffin|<span style="color:#f0faff;">~AgentMuffin</span>]]</span>


I have seen similar jokes on punctuation. Like: "I know Im not good at putting in any punctuation So here is some you can put in yourself <nowiki>..........,,,,,,,,,,------------""""""""" ''''''''' "</nowiki> I sadly have it this way with commas especially (but not only) in English. I can see that when others have copy edited my posts. But I think that is the great thing about wikis. The hard part is making the explanations, and the others can easily correct spell erroers etc.  :-) --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 20:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm a French native speaker, and I think I need more explanation. In English, you only use diacritics with words from other languages, right ? I guess "Résumé" comes from French (even if we only say CV), and forte/forté comes from Italian, am I right ? Then WHY do you write "forté" on a music sheet when in France, and I think in Italy too, we write "forte" ? Thank you for your potential answers. [[User:Seipas|Seipas]] ([[User talk:Seipas|talk]]) 21:06, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
:As an Italian mother tongue speaker, I removed the reference to "forté" as musical term, and marked it for verification on Wiktionary. --[[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.129|141.101.104.129]] 21:39, 24 February 2016 (UTC) (Gengis Gat)

:The explanation used to have a bit about how English speakers confuse the French-derived word "''forte''", pronounced /fort/, and the Italian-derived musical term "''forte''", pronounced /fortay/, and come up with a neither-fish-nor-fowl spelling of ''forté'', which is of course incorrect in all three languages. Note that you emphatically '''don't''' write "forté" on sheet music, or anywhere else for that matter, unless you're misspelling it. [[Special:Contributions/173.245.54.53|173.245.54.53]] 22:46, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

:It's not ''quite'' true that English only uses diacritics on borrowed words.

:* English can use a diaeresis (¨) for hiatus when the spelling would otherwise be confusing, much like in French—e.g., in "noöne" or "coöperation". This is nearly obsolete, but the ''New Yorker'' still uses it, as do a few medical and biological journals (the Greek root "-oo-" in particular can be confusing…).

:* There are a few other completely obsolete rules that English used to have. For example, until around the mid-19th century, an acute accent could be used to mark a non-silent "e" where it would otherwise be confusing—e.g., the Sicilian-English Duchy of Bronte was once often spelled Bronté to distinguish it from the French town of Bronte (pronounced /ˈbrɒnti/ and /bront/, respectively).

:* Some of these obsolete rules still leave relics in proper names. There are people with the surname Bronté from back when the Duchy was spelled that way, and many American girls around 6-8 years old are named Chloë because the last time that name was popular, English spelling still used the diaeresis for hiatus.

Some pedants like to spell words with French diacritics that weren't actually borrowed from French, like "canoë" (which was actually borrowed into French from English, not vice-versa), or, most famously, 'naïve" (which was borrowed from French back before French had the hiatus rule).

But "forté" is even worse than "canoë"—at least "canoë" is the correct French spelling; "forté" is not the correct Italian spelling. The fact that it ''was'' correct English spelling centuries years ago isn't relevant (especially since English was almost never used on sheet music until pretty recently). When you see it on English sheet music in 2016, it's not because the ancient usage has been revived, but because someone mistakenly thought the Italian has a diacritic. Music tutorials often go out of their way to remind people that there is no such word as "forté" in either English or Italian, but people still keep making the mistake. --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.252.125|162.158.252.125]] 08:08, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Just a note: In the transcript, the fancy ȩ̊́́́́̆ has one acute accent too much ;) (4 instead of 3)... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.114.147|162.158.114.147]] 05:12, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
:141.101.104.27 fixed this already. --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 13:03, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the macron over the i in "find".[[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.213|108.162.210.213]] 00:45, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
:So I added it to the explanation. Interestingly, the transcript did include the macron. [[User:Nitpicking|Nitpicking]] ([[User talk:Nitpicking|talk]]) 01:34, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Note that in French "résumé" means "summary" and is never used as a replacement for "CV". [[Special:Contributions/162.158.91.221|162.158.91.221]] 22:13, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I amn't sure how to pronounce the band name "Down Left Forte". Couldn't contact them. [[User:Omg Oriental Music Group|Omg Oriental Music Group]] ([[User talk:Omg Oriental Music Group|talk]]) 06:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)