Re: Question about "do"

CT = Christian Thalmann
MT = Muke Tever

CT> The mark ´ is called an acute accent.  A tilde would be ~.

MT> As far as Spanish is concerned, actually "tilde" only means "accent mark".

Not true.  That may be informal usage, but according to every
instructor and reference I have (had), Spanish "tilde" refers
exclusively to the '~' sign; it is, in fact, the source of the
English word "tilde" for the same symbol.  The mark over vowels to
indicate unusual emphasis (or the marked element of a homophonic
pair) as in <acá, él, aquí, ó, último> is called a "(signo)
acento" = "accent (mark)".  When there is a need to distinguish
it from an accent mark pointing the other way (not used in Spanish
but discussed in Spanish when talking about other languages), it's
more specifically a "(signo) acento agudo" = "acute accent (mark),
although I don't know the Spanish term for its opposite
("grave accent").

Vowels with tildes do not appear in Spanish, although they do in
other Iberian languages, notably Portuguese.

-Mark

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