Re: Ignorant people & diacritics

On Wed, 1 Dec 2004 20:06:35 -0500, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> wrote:
> There are some people I just want to grab by the lapels, shake vigorously,
> and remind in no uncertain terms to *pay* *attention* *to* *life*. It's
> like people just breeze through life not watching or listening to anything
> except when it's made abundantly clear beforehand that "this is going to
> be on the test". Nothing frustrates me more. Well, a few things, but not
> many, and not nearly as often.
Different people find different things worthy of attention, and react
in different ways to what other people pay attention to.  Paying
attention to life does not imply paying attention to every jot and
tittle, and spelling in general, even with only the English alphabet
to work with, is simply beyond some people - including some very
intelligent ones who pay quite a bit of attention to life in general.

 I have a friend named Øystein in Norway; our communication is mostly
textual, via online chat or email, and I'm always careful to type it
that way - or in ASCII-only environments, as Oeystein, which is an
acceptable graphic substitution. When speaking to or about him, I also
try to pronounce it using the proper Norwegian diphthong, though I
probably fail in the effort.  But while I'm sure on some level he
appreciates that I take the trouble, on another level I think he
regards it as me just showing off my linguistic awareness.  Everyone
else in our group just spells it "Oystein" and pronounces it
/oi_^stei_^n/, and he seems to be more comfortable that way.
Diff'rent strokes, etc.

In any case, I wouldn't be too hard on people who are inattentive in
that way, but I would remind them that when it comes to people's
names, as opposed to words in general, spelling becomes a matter of
politeness, and should therefore be deserving of more attention than
it usually gets - however much that may be in any given case.