'caron'

And Rosta wrote:
> Ray:
>
>>the 'caron' (hacek, haczek) used in the writing of Czech
>>& some other Slav langs - like an _inverted_ circumflex.
>
>
> Where does this word 'caron' come from? I first encountered
> it in the character set section of the manual of my first
> computer (Amstrad PCW, I worked all the summer of 1987 to
> buy it), but it's not in my copies of OED or Webster's
> Unabridged, and I've never seen it in texts on typography
> or writing systems (where hacek, which is in the dictionaries,
> is used).
This has been discussed on this list before. Try
<http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0310e&L=conlang&F=&S=&P=1316>
by the ever-knowledgeable John Cowan (29 Oct 2003):

: Andreas Johansson scripsit:
:
: > > Nevertheless, the standards community has adopted "diaeresis" as
the general
: > > name, so we are stuck with it. They also call the hacek "caron",
and no one
: > > knows why.
:
: > What's the etymology of "caron", BTW?
:
: That's just what I meant by "no one knows why"; the etymology is unknown,
: and the term seems to exist only in ISO character standards.

So we're all at a loss. What fun!

I suppose it'll find its way into dictionaries soon enough. It's
definitely in _Tristan's Dictionary Kept in His Brain for His and only
His Consultation_, the definitive dictionary of my idiolect. (Copies
cannot be made, sorry.)

--
Tristan.                 |       To be nobody-but-yourself in a world
kesuari at yahoo!.com.au |  which is doing its best to, night and day,
                          |                 to make you everybody else---
                          |          means to fight the hardest battle
                          |            which any human being can fight;
                          |                    and never stop fighting.
                          |      --- E. E. Cummings, "A Miscellany"

Replies