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Day: August 2, 2016

Why does The New Yorker use a diaeresis for some double vowels?

By: | Post date: 2016-08-02 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: English, Writing Systems

You can use a diacritic only when it’s necessary to prevent confusion, or you can use a diacritic consistently, whenever the pronunciation goes one way rather than the other. In the former case, you reduce the number of diacritics in the language. In the latter case, you reduce the amount of pronunciation ambiguity. English has […]

Is there a word which can be used to describe a pair of names which are different gendered variants of the same name?

By: | Post date: 2016-08-02 | Comments: No Comments
Posted in categories: General Language, Linguistics

It’s a fascinating question, and I don’t know that there is an existing word. Partly, that’s sexism, and partly, that’s the bias of historical linguistics in explaining derivation: Martina is the “feminine variant” or “feminisation” of Martin, and it doesn’t occur to people to describe the relationship of Martin back to Martina. In the rare […]