Dear Expert

[Jonathon]

Why would there need to be an established rule?

And if somebody has tried to establish one, they can stick it in their ear!

I'm Jonathon, and I support this message.

I don't think it matters at all. And some people would agree that it doesn't matter but would still recommend consistency. I don't think I'm even consistent.

[The Genuine]

For the Sake of searchability, I think titles should never begin with "The" and should probably begin with a memorable keyword.

[Porter]

*resists urge to edit thread titles to confounde Jess(i?)e.*

[Marianne Dashwood]

Jesse.

Jessie is the spelling for girls. Unless you're Rick Springfield who, apparently, was confused about the gendered spellings of the name and also the appropriateness of using the word "moot" in pop lyrics just because it rhymes with "cute."

[Porter]

Given that I couldn't remember which it was, I figured the safer router was to to acknowledge/apologize for my ignorance rather than have a 50% of offending by simply getting it wrong.

[Marianne Dashwood]

I'm not mad at you at all. Just Rick Springfield. Mostly for him creating that song so it could get stuck in my head.

[The Genuine]

Instead of saying "no i," I like to instruct people (generally over the phone) that my name is spelt just as it is in the Bible.

A savory moment of confusion and awkwardness often ensues.

[rivka]

that my name is spelt just as it is in the Bible.

Which is fairly nonsensical, since you don't actually spell it in Hebrew 99% of the time.

[Jonathon]

Seems pretty sensical to me, since most of the people he'd be saying that to are not Jews and thus would not think of the Hebrew Bible.

[The Genuine]

Generally when I mention the Tolstoy character, for instance, I don't write it Анна Каренина.

[rivka]

Seems pretty sensical to me, since most of the people he'd be saying that to are not Jews and thus would not think of the Hebrew Bible.

Except he has used it me and Esther. Multiple times.

[Jonathon]

But did you actually think that Jesse was saying that his name is Yishay, spelled יִשַׁי?

[rivka]

No. But neither did I glean the meaning he wanted, because I frequently don't know the English spellings/translations of biblical names without looking them up.

[Jonathon]

Fair enough.

And of course, since Jesse talked about the "savory moment of confusion and awkwardness", I think we can safely assume that communicating clearly was not his primary goal.

[rivka]

I think we can safely assume that communicating clearly was not his primary goal.

Indubitably.

[pooka]

The biblical thing sticks for me, though I believe he once told me "like David's dad".

[Porter]

A savory moment of confusion and awkwardness often ensues.

Trolling IRL.

[Marianne Dashwood]

I was just reading a New Yorker article and they used a trema in the word reëlection. I knew about its use in French but until today was utterly unaware that we could use it similarly in English. How common is this?

[Jonathon]

As far as I know, the New Yorker is the only place in the entire English-speaking world where you will still find that practice, though apparently it was common once.

And just so you know, the English word for that diacritical mark is diaeresis.

[Marianne Dashwood]

The English word for the mark is trema - it's used in this situation for diaeresis rather than for umlaut.

[Tante Shvester]

Well, I'm in the English-speaking world, and I use it. But then again, I also use semicolons, so I'm hardly typical.

[Jonathon]

I've never heard it called a trema in English, and the OED doesn't even have an entry for it.

[Marianne Dashwood]

Trema

[Jonathon]

A poorly sourced Wikipedia article is your proof?

[Marianne Dashwood]

There are enough people calling it that for that to be the name of the wikipedia article.

And you call yourself a descriptivist?