[CrackMonkey] .sig haiku, no zinc

[Mike Goldman]

Seth David Schoen wrote:

> (1) "Umlaut" is actually the name of the phonetic process by which certain
> vowels in certain languages (most extensively in German) are moved (to
> the front of the mouth, isn't it?) under certain conditions.
>
> (2) This is indicated in German orthography and orthographies derived from
> it by a mark containing two dots, which is an "umlaut mark" (sometimes
> "umlaut" for short).
>
> (3) The process of diaeresis (or dieresis) also happens to be indicated
> (starting in scholarly Latin in the Middle Ages, I think) by two dots over
> the second vowel, which is a "diaeresis mark" (sometimes "diaeresis" for
> short).

It is usually not too hard to tell the usage apart, in that the umlaut will
generally appear with a single vowel (i.e., "Sch[:o]n") and the di(a)eresis will
only appear in the context of multiple vowels (i.e., "co[:o]rdinate").  I cannot
think of any instance where an umlaut would appear on the second of two vowels.
Modern (English) usage seems to dispense with the trema altogether, substituting
a suffixed "e" for umlaut, and optionally a prefixed "-" for dieresis (i.e.,
"Schoen" and "co-operate").  This may be mostly due to the fact that it isn't
convenient to type on an English language keyboard, or possible to transmit
in (non-MIME) 7-bit ASCII.

If you wanted people to pronounce your name SHOW-en, you might use "Scho[:e]n".