Re: TERMS: going dotty, twice over (was: TERMS: Umlaut-Ablaut)

Raymond Brown wrote:

> And I suppose =FF is &yuml.
Indeed, or more accurately "ÿ".

> I can only suppose that those who coined the HTML terms were monoglot
> anglophones who hadn't a clue about umlaut or diaeresis.
Improbable.  The terms are standard SGML (HTML's enclosing framework,
as it were) which is an ISO standard.  Perhaps they were motivated
by a greater recognizability of "uml" over "dia" or the like.

> A neat system would be to call the two dots 'trema' and confine the ter=
ms
> 'umlaut' & 'di(a)eresis' to the two different usages of the trema.
Unicode uses "diaeresis" throughout, except that precomposed=20
Greek letters have names like "iota with dialytika".  However, "diaeresis=
"
is the term used for the mark as such, even in Greek-script contexts.
Similar treatment is given to "tonos"/"oxia", "varia", and "perispomeni"
in the names of precomposed Greek letters, whereas "acute", "grave", and
"circumflex" are the terms used in all other contexts. =20

--=20

John Cowan      http://www.reutershealth.com            jcowan@reutershealth.com
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! / Schliess eurer Aug vor heiliger=
 Schau
Den er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
                -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)