Dear Expert

[Jonathon]

I do. I'm just skeptical of your evidence—it only takes one person to write a Wikipedia article, neh? And yet the OED has never seen it used enough to warrant its entry, whereas it does have diaeresis:

The sign [¨] marking such a division [of one syllable into two], or, more usually, placed over the second of two vowels which otherwise make a diphthong or single sound, to indicate that they are to be pronounced separately.

[The Genuine]

Pfft.

It only takes one person to write an OED.

[Jonathon]

Even if that were true, how many did it take to write all the quotations they use as evidence?

[Marianne Dashwood]

I think the purpose of calling it a trema instead of a diaeresis is that it means the diacritical mark when it's used for diaeresis (as it always is in English) as well as when it's used for umlaut (which, coincidentally, most people would call the mark even though we don't use it for umlaut in English). If we called it a diaeresis, we wouldn't be talking about the mark used for umlaut as well.

And it wasn't just one person. It was a group of people who, incidentally, already had this conversation.

[Jonathon]

Hey, you're the one who impugned my claim to be a descriptivist while putting forward iffy evidence yourself. The talk page shows that there's a dispute among some people, not that trema is the more widely accepted term.

If we called it a diaeresis, we wouldn't be talking about the mark used for umlaut as well.

Which was pretty much my point. There are no umlauts in English aside from the heavy-metal kind.

[Jonathon]

For the record, I just assumed* that you didn't know the English term for the mark and were using the French term, because I've done that myself. I was trying to be helpful, and I'm sorry if it came across as pedantic.


*You know what happens when you assume.

[The Genuine]

Even if that were true, how many did it take to write all the quotations they use as evidence?

I don't know, but that's a mind-blowing body of work.

(Probably 50% Shakespeare, right?)

[Jonathon]

Probably not. The quotes span nearly 1500 years of English, but Shakespeare's works span only about a quarter of a century.

[The Genuine]

Yeah I was kidding (which I think you were on to).  But it would be cool to read all that stuff, huh?


While I'm here, should I have written onto?

[Jonathon]

While I'm here, should I have written onto?

I'd say no, but I'm honestly not sure. This is one of those vexing little things that I've never sorted out, like can not/cannot. But this site says that they're often interchangeable, so maybe it just doesn't matter.

[Marianne Dashwood]

For the record, I just assumed* that you didn't know the English term for the mark and were using the French term, because I've done that myself. I was trying to be helpful, and I'm sorry if it came across as pedantic.


*You know what happens when you assume.

Gotcha. I assumed you were being helpful, but was trying to justify my choice of word. It led, in the end, to being much more aware of the subject than I was before.

[Scott R]

This is driving me crazy.

CANNOT.

NOT "CAN NOT."

Am I right?  Huh?

[Porter]

From dictionary.com:

cannot is sometimes also spelled can not. The one-word spelling is by far the more common

[Jonathon]

Everything I can find says they're interchangeable, though most people giving advice will still give you the weaselly "But you should use cannot anyway."

[Porter]

I had to do a search to figure out which one I use.

[Marianne Dashwood]

I personally prefer cain't.

[BlackBlade]

I personally prefer cain't.

I'm partial to avoiding the whole debate in favor of [/i]not no-how[/i].

[pooka]

I'm not sure when I'd use cannot instead of can't. 

[dkw]

Bibliography question -- The guy I'm editing for has consistently put a comma rather than a period after the name of the author when the author only has one name (like Aristotle).  I wasn't aware that there was a difference, but none of the examples in my handy shortcut guide are one-namers and I don't want to hike over to the library to check Chicago.  Jonathon, I'm assuming you know this one off the top of your head -- should it be a period like all the other entries?

[Jonathon]

I didn't know off the top of my head, but I looked it up pretty quickly. (Hooray for online access!) This is what Chicago 16 says:

Authors known only by their given names (i.e., and not by any surname) are listed and alphabetized by those names. Such titles as “King” or “Saint” are omitted.

Augustine. On Christian Doctrine. Translated by D. W. Robertson Jr. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958.
Elizabeth I. Collected Works. Edited by Leah S. Marcus, Janel Mueller, and Mary Beth Rose. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

It should be a period like all the other entries.

[dkw]

Thank you.  I thought that was probably true (or at least I couldn't think of any reason why it wouldn't be) but I didn't want to change it in someone else's work unless I was sure.

[Jonathon]

No problem.

[BlackBlade]

"I'll give it a looksee". Dictionary.com at least recognizes the word, and while it makes sense to combine those two verbs as a sort of informal lookover, is it possible the word was supposed to be "Looksy/looksie/looksey" where we attach the sound "ee" like in the word "looky looky" so as to give a word a more informal playful taste? Much like the words "meanie" "dummy" "hottie".

[Jonathon]

The OED says of the etymology of look-see, "Pidgin-like formation < look n. or look v. + see v." Not terribly helpful. And Etymonline is even less helpful. All I can find about it so far is that it's either from a form of Pidgin English or is simply imitative of Pidgin English.

[BlackBlade]

I guess we'll never know.