In previous articles about linguistics and usage, I mentioned the malleability of English since it incorporates so many words from diverse languages. Sometimes these loanwords include diacritics, which are symbols that alter pronunciation, distinguish words, indicate stress, or mark a historical spelling. Think of characters like â, à, ä, ç, é, ê, ñ, and ó. In English, diacritics are often, but not always, omitted; however, when adding non-English words as non-English words, it is important to include the proper accent marks.
Today, I’ll write about how to make these symbols (quite easy once you get the hang of it), and I’ll add a few other tidbits about whether you should even bother to use them in your writing. I’m sticking to six marks today. That leaves out the ring, the stroke, the caron, the macron, and a few more, but you won’t run into those very often in English. No references or further reading notes today since nothing is derived from any particular source.
A Quick Tech Note
(Skip to the next section if not interested in the tech.)
Before beginning, here are a few preliminaries on how to make an e become é. It depends mostly on the device and system. Also, I am assuming you are using an English IME; other language input editors have different approaches.
Mac and Mobile
Mac systems and mobile devices are probably the easiest for working with diacritics, and that is by design. On mobile, press and hold the letter for a few seconds, and then select the glyph you want from the pop-up. On a Mac, the same press-and-hold works in most apps, but the older method is more reliable. Press Option and the accent key, release, and then press the letter.
Microsoft Word
I’m mostly a Windows user, and I admit that it can be a bit complicated to do some of the seemingly simplest things like adding diacritics in MS Word. Inserting symbols from the symbol group or copying and pasting from other sources are options, but these techniques can be cumbersome; the easiest way to go is keyboard shortcuts.
I should mention that the shortcuts below are Word commands rather than Windows commands, so they won’t do anything for you in a browser, an email client, or Notepad. If you need diacritics outside of Word, you are looking at the US-International keyboard layout, Alt codes, or the character panel (Win + period).
Example on Applying Shortcuts
Press the Ctrl key and the apostrophe key at the same time. Release and press the letter you want. This should be done in quick succession. To make a capital letter, press Shift and the letter.
Ctrl + ‘ (apostrophe), e = é
Ctrl + ‘ (apostrophe), Shift + e = É
Acute, Aigu ( ´ )
In English, the majority of words with an acute are from French and almost always appear as é. (Yes, there are some exceptions.) Over time, many words with an acute or two have dropped them and are accepted as such. Others, however, have not. The following handful of words still commonly include diacritics in English (French origin unless otherwise noted): café, cliché, communiqué, coup d’état, exposé, and touché.
One word obviously missing from the list is résumé. This needs a bit of discussion. Dictionaries and style guides often accept both résumé and resume as spellings, but there is a problem. In much the same way that exposé should be written with the acute to distinguish it from expose, logically résumé should follow suit to distinguish it from a word that means to continue an action, resume. It might be more of a personal thing, but no one will question résumé while some may question resume. (Also, it has two diacritics, not one. I recently saw a job posting for an editor, and they asked for a resumé. I died a little inside. In fairness, some dictionaries do list that spelling as a variant, so I was probably being a bit harsh.)
Tech Tip: Acute
To make á, é, í, ó, ú, ý, Á, É, Í, Ó, Ú, Ý
Press Ctrl + ‘ (apostrophe), letter
Grave ( ` )
The grave is much less frequent in English than the acute. It looks like an acute, but it slants the other way. The acute rises from left to right and the grave falls. Chèvre and crèche have retained the grave, but let’s face it, typing “goat cheese” and “Nativity scene,” respectively, is probably easier. To make this go a bit quicker, I’ll throw in just a couple of other words that sometimes retain the grave: à la carte and vis-à-vis, but typing without the grave is generally fine.
Tech Tip: Grave
To make à, è, ì, ò, ù, À, È, Ì, Ò, Ù
Press Ctrl + ` (grave), letter
Note that the grave is located to the left of the 1 key on a typical QWERTY keyboard.
Circumflex, Circonflexe ( ˆ )
The circumflex is rarely used these days, but sometimes people want to add it, mostly to retain some accuracy from the original French. The simplified versions in English generally work well enough. Common examples include coup de grâce, crème brûlée, crêpe, papier-mâché, and tête-à-tête. One thing to keep straight is that the circumflex is not a caret, even if they look alike. The caret is the proofreader’s mark for inserting something.
Tech Tip: Circumflex
To make â, ê, î, ô, û, Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û
Press Ctrl + Shift + ^ (circumflex), letter
Note that the circumflex is on the 6 key on a typical QWERTY keyboard.
Cedilla, Cédille ( ¸ )
The little tail that hangs below the c in French like this ç is a cedilla. (It is also used in several other languages, but it is uncommon to find loanwords retaining the cedilla.) One common English word that retains the cedilla is façade. Admittedly, there are a few other obscure words that have retained it, but why mention them? The cedilla is mostly reserved for non-English words that appear in English texts.
Tech Tip: Cedilla
To make ç, Ç
Press Ctrl + , (comma), letter
Note that the cedilla marks other letters as well, such as ş in Turkish and ģ, ķ, ļ, and ņ in Latvian.
Tilde ( ~ )
From Spanish for a change, we have the tilde—the wavy character generally appearing over the letter n. Several words retain ñ in English, but a few may sometimes appear without. Common words include El Niño, jalapeño, piñata, señor, and señora.
Tech Tip: Tilde
To make ã, ñ, õ, Ã, Ñ, Õ
Press Ctrl + Shift + ~ (tilde), letter
Note that the tilde shares a key with the grave, to the left of the 1 key.
Umlaut and Dieresis, Tréma ( ¨ )
I wrote about the umlaut when writing about the German influence on English in one of my etymology articles. For a quick recap, the umlaut (two dots over a vowel) shifts the vowel sound. The dieresis looks exactly the same, but it does a different job. It tells you that the vowel is pronounced separately from the one next to it. So Möbius and Schrödinger have umlauts, while Zoë and naïve have diereses. That French connection is where the tréma in this section’s heading comes from. Most of the words that hold onto the two dots in English are proper nouns, but doppelgänger and über are common ones.
Tech Tip: Umlaut and Dieresis
To make ä, ë, ï, ö, ü, ÿ, Ä, Ë, Ï, Ö, Ü, Ÿ
Press Ctrl + Shift + : (colon), letter
A Short Closing
If you are like me and often include non-English words in your English texts, these shortcuts can be very useful. I hope they can help you. Take care.