The Vanishing Diaeresis

This really has nothing to do with the Bible or theology but should be a matter of great concern for Americans.  In a day when great furor is made in an effort to preserve the environment, why is there no outcry?  Where is the clarion call?  Have we as a people become distracted by the trivial and lost sight of the grand vista?  Have we as a nation become so lax that we cannot raise the standard and not lose this once prominent diacritic mark.

So now you are asking to yourself, "What is a diacritic mark, and why do I care?"  Technically, it is an ancillary glyph added to a letter.  In layman's terms it is a mark above a letter to show a change in pronunciation.  The most common is the acute accent and is used in words like résumé and entrée.  The diaeresis is the double dot above a letter, as in coördinate and naïve, signifying that the two-vowel combination is not a diphthong but that the second letter is to be pronounced separately.

Why should you care?  Modern English usage simple removes the mark entirely expecting the reader to make the adjustment.  That might work for coördinate and naïve, but how do we pronounce other words?  For instance, how would one state that something had been evaluated again?  Is it a re-evaluation or a reëvaluation?  The former is far more common in modern usage, but the latter is quite correct and in my not so humble estimation preferred.  Older books—pre-twentieth century—use this convention, and I appreciate the effort linguists and publishers took to maintain it.

So, the next time you need to type or write something, remember the lowly and under-used diaeresis.  Use it with gusto.  Automated spell-checkers do not recognize it.  Standard keyboards do not automatically map to it.  Fear not.  Simply hold down the Alt key while keying a 4-position number on the keypad.  What could be easier?  (Actually, the Character Map program is rather easy, but we are trying to be "old school.")  Take up the cause.  Rise against the machine.  Stick it to the man.  Celebrate the personal victory.