John Cowan wrote:
> Well, the etymology is straight Greek bio-skopos, with phonetic Dutch
> spelling. But the first modern language to make use of it was French!
> In 1892 the inventor Georges Demenÿ patented a motion picture projector
> which projected images from rotating glass discs. When it was marketed
> by Léon Gaumont from the end of 1895, it was renamed a Bioscope.
I thought there might also have been an American Bioscope Co. somewhere back
in the early days-- anyhow I wasn't totally off-base calling it "positively
antique"...
>
> ObLang: what is that diaeresis doing on Demenÿ's name? It's obviously
> not functioning as a diaeresis, as there is no adjacent vowel.
Maybe (1) to show that the -y _is_ a vowel?? I don't think final "y" occurs
normally in French (??)
Or (2) if M.Demenÿ was of Dutch origin, perhaps it's for "ij"?? y-dieresis
could be so used in the olden days IIRC. Reading a Bordeaux label once, I
noted that the shipper was Schÿler &.......