Favorite character?

[da_chimperor]

Not what you were thinking, right? :D And before anyone says anything . . . yes, I have too much time on my hands.

[Book Lover]

1. Other: thorn

It's the long-barred "p"-looking letter that expresses the theta sound. Dammed if I know how to display it... :-)

[da_chimperor]

2. Does it look like this?

þ ;)

[Book Lover]

4. Yep!

Thanks :-)

[da_chimperor]

7. The things you can find with google are amazing n/t

[Spider Jerusalem]

40. keystroke is alt+0222...

(n/t)

[Book Lover]

42. Thank you, sir

I am afraid I am displaying my laziness, as well as my ignorance. And me having worked with Quark since forever...

[Reverend_Smitty]

3. How about the...

two dot thingy that goes above the U in some German words...not sure what that is called but it is still bad-ass

[da_chimperor]

5. That would be an umlaut, the top choice, like this ü

I love having a mac . . .

[Book Lover]

6. Umlaut

Top choice. It goes above vowels; perhaps you're just used to seeing it in metal band names? I know I am....

[Reverend_Smitty]

13. lol...

yeah, metal bands love the umlaut

[da_chimperor]

18. Mötörhead, Motley crüe, etc.

I'm starting to wish I voted for the umlaut.

[Xipe Totec]

8. Umlaut or dieresis

Also used in Spanish to force an otherwise silent u after g to be sounded, as in the word güero, meaning a blond boy.

[tjwmason]

44. Also used in English

to designate the pronunciation of a dipthong - for example the 'i' in naïve.

[Xipe Totec]

52. Only on words borrowed from other languages

The dierisis is not an English accent mark per-se.

English includes some words which can be written with accent marks. These words have mostly been imported from other languages, usually French. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing, to the point where actually writing the accent may be interpreted as a sign of pretension. The strongest tendency to retain the accent is in words that are atypical of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly foreign. For example, café has a pronounced final e, which would be silent by the normal English pronunciation rules.

Some examples: à la carte, ångström, appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, café, cliché, crème, crêpe, derrière, éclair, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, führer, maté, ménage à trois, naïve, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, piñón, protégé, raison d'être, résumé, risqué, sauté, séance, über-, vis-à-vis, voilà.

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engelsk_spr%C3%A5k

[tjwmason]

54. Pretty much all English words are borrowed.

Those which aren't are generally carried over from our forefather Anglo-Saxon which had its own non-standard characters. I have a great love of accents, and use them with a reckless abandon; I think that our pages are becoming more boring with the decline in accentation. I once got into a heated argument over the use of the circumflex in rôle.

I have found the use of dieresis to be more English (that is more domesticated) than other accents, though still slightly archaïc.

[Xipe Totec]

56. Blame it on the Latin Alphabet

Trying to cram so many sounds into such a limited set of characters led to the use of accents and character sequences to map the sounds. Some characters of the modern alphabet began as other characters with accent marks. For example the C with cedilla ç which was used to represent the Greek Zeta (cedilla = zetilla, meaning little zed). Now obsolete in Spanish, it was still in use when the poem El Cid was written 1,000 years ago.

http://www.du.edu/~etuttle/classics/latalph.htm

All languages borrow from each other, but most languages map the pronunciation of a borrowed word to the closest phonetic equivalent within the native spelling rules. Filet mignon in Spanish becomes filé miñón, and beef steak becomes bistec.

What's unique about English is the tendency to adopt the spelling, pronunciation, and even the accent marks of words borrowed from other languages. This makes it impossible to "spell out" detailed rules of English pronunciation (tongue firmly in cheek :evilgrin: ). That is why English spelling bees are genuine tests of skill and memory. In other languages spelling bees would be pointless exercises in restatement of the obvious (Q.- How do you spell Gutierrez? A.- Just like it sounds :D ).

[Worst Username Ever]

9. Accente circumflex

[da_chimperor]

12. So that's what the little pointy-hat thing is.

It's been a loooong time since I took french. Thanks!

[msgadget]

10. Oooh, the tilde is so hot!

[Taxloss]

15. Tilda swinton?

[Xipe Totec]

17. Ñañaras is my favorite word

It is the name of a sensation similar to the heebie-jeebies, but strong enough to make your bunghole quiver.

[Taxloss]

11. The pointy-thingy is a circonflex. The dangly-c thingy is a cidilla.

For me, it's acute accents all the way.

[saltpoint]

14. Voted for 'Accent - grave' -- mostly because the damn thing --

-- looked so forlorn. No one had voted for it so far. If it had been a puppy at the Pound, I would have it home by now.

Ok, da_chimperor. This post is TOO excellent.

[Jamastiene]

16. The Scandinavian "o" thingy

It means "phase" in AC electricity classes at college and spares me having to write another word out.

[JohnKleeb]

19. eh I dunno.

[da_chimperor]

21. Come on, pick one damnit

I didn't spend all of 10 minutes making a poll for people to sit on the fence! :spank:

[JohnKleeb]

24. anything with the cyrillic alphabet, happy boyo?

[da_chimperor]

25. Hmmm, i'll see what I can do n/t

[JohnKleeb]

26. hah you know what I just did eh?

When I talk to someone enough, I get their mannerisms and shit, hell my eh is aquaired not genuine.

[da_chimperor]

29. Nevermind

I tried typing in a cyrillic B, but it didn't work for some reason after I first posted this. :shrug:

Edit: Eh? Ehhhhhh!

[JohnKleeb]

30. thats ok dude

[da_chimperor]

33. If you want some cyrillic

and you have the problem language-pack display thingy installed, go to http://www.pravda.ru

[JohnKleeb]

38. isnt it an awesome language? god I wanna go back to mother russia now

[da_chimperor]

49. Dude, WTF?

You're not from russia? What gives? :shrug:

[Xipe Totec]

28. How about this one: é

The short ee sound é,

or ÿ, the 'ya' sound.

Damn! they don't display properly after posting. Agh!

[da_chimperor]

31. I know! It worked at first . . .

Kinda aggravating. :grr:

[tjwmason]

45. I love the way that in printed Russian

'T' is as in the Latin alphabet, but in written Russian to get the same sound one writes 'm'.

Three cheers for Saints Cyril and Methodius.

[SheilaT]

20. Accent grave

is my favorite, but I like ALL of the wonderful French pronunciation marks: accent grave, accent aigue, circumflex, and cedilla. People who haven't studied French, or only taken maybe one semester, complain that it's hard to spell and illogical. Au contraire! It does an excellent job of following its own rules. and the accent marks are very helpful.

[da_chimperor]

23. They really are helpful, I took French back in the day

It's fairly easy to spell once you've got an ear for it and understand the accents.

[deadparrot]

22. As someone who is very German...I'm gonna go with the umlaut.

[PittPoliSci]

27. the long S

looks like an a lowercase f but streches below the botton line and does not have the left "-" on it.

[Deja Q]

32. ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

[da_chimperor]

34. You have a way with words sometimes

:)

[Xipe Totec]

36. ¿ por que ?

[St. Jarvitude]

35. The Esset gets no love

ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß
ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß
ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß

[Xipe Totec]

37. Straße! I love that word!

[da_chimperor]

39. To bad it's now Strasse under the revised german rules . . .

:(

[nytemare]

46. Aww man!

When first got to Germany in 91 when I was in the Army, I was stationed off of Giessener Strasse, which looked like Giebener Strabe to me. I miss Germany. :)

[da_chimperor]

48. I miss it too.

Luckily I can be there in about 45 min. :evilgrin: The problem is its the boring part of Germany with little to do.

[nytemare]

57. Aren't the Netherlands nice though?

From what I understand, as far as the opinion of the citizenry, Netherlands is about tops.

45 minutes isn't bad!

[Xipe Totec]

53. Too bad, that's true

Spanish has also revised its alphabet and abandoned the double consonants ch, ll, which have special sounds and used to have separate entries in the dictionary.

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. eth...

Ð (capital) ð (small)

Eth represents the "th" sound in "thin", whereas thorn (Þ) represents the "th" sound in "the"...eth became obsolete earlier than thorn, actually, and the use of "Y" instead of "th" in some older documents comes from the fact that the "y" represented thorn, a letter that wasn't in the type case...

[tjwmason]

43. Ash

which is now normally rendered as ae (or even worse just e) - especially in the names of the Saxon kings AEthelred and the others.

[da_chimperor]

50. I was thinking of putting that in the poll, but I didn't know

anything regarding it's use.

[shayes51]

47. * because it keeps us from having to type or read

that awful name! What a martyr!

[GreenPartyVoter]

51. Tilde. ... I always use it when signing my name

~Jen

------------------------------------------------------
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http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/index.htm#shopping

[Zuni]

55. The umlaut adds toughness to ordinary worlds

That is why I will start adding umlauts to my name.

The scandinavian O thingy is also cool as is the spanish ~