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Comment by runarberg

14 hours ago

Completely unrelated, but I am curious about your keyboard layout since you mistyped ö instead of - these two symbols are side by side in the Icelandic layout, and the ö is where - in the English (US) layout. As such this is a common type-o for people who regularly switch between the Icelandic and the English (US) layout (source: I am that person). I am curious whether more layouts where that could be common.

This is also a stylistic choice that the New Yorker magazine uses for words with double vowels where you pronounce each one separately, like coöperate, reëlect, preëminent, and naïve. So possibly intentional.

  • That makes sense[1] but it prompts the obvious question: does this style write it as typeö then?

    1: Though personally I hate it, I just cannot not read those as completely different vowels (in particular ï → [i:] or the ee in need; ë → [je:] or the first e here; and ö → [ø] or the e in her)

    • No. Firstly because it is spelled “typo.” Secondly you typically use the diaeresis to tell the reader to not confuse it with a similarly spelled sound or diphthong. So it tells a reader that “reëlect” is not pronounced REEL-ect, “coöperate” is not COOP-uh-ray-t, and “naïve” is not NAY-v.

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