I love the New Yorker and read it cover-to-cover it every month, but it really does have diaerreah.
Wow… that is just precious.
I’m surprised someone else didn’t pick this up already, but this is not true. The acute accent in French does not denote a long vowel. It’s only used with the letter e and denotes a close-mid front unrounded vowel (e).
matt_mcl sort of touched on this, but the accent circonflexe is indeed used (sometimes) to indicate a long vowel.
Yes, I’ve heard the word coop, but I wasn’t sure whether that was what you were referencing. Thank you. (And I think you meant loose)
I’ve also bought at The Coop, but either my Scottish coworkers pronounced it co-op or we just never caught on to it being pronounced like chicken ones.
No, “lose” works, too, for the “oo” sound being described. The difference between “lose” and “loose” is weather the final consonant is voiced or unvoiced. The vowel is the same.
RôFL
I don’t think the Reader’s Digest even knows what orthography is. Anyway, they got their articles from other sources. As others have said, it’s The New Yorker that is known for championing the diaeresis.
“Coop” and “cooperate” are also common spellings for “co-op” and “co-operate.” The hyphen (or diaeresis) isn’t mandatory.
Which just shows the bizarrity of English spelling. It would be too simple to spell the words ‘luze’ and ‘luse’, wouldn’t it?
“Luse” just doen’t look right to me, either. I’d pronounce that word as “lu:z,” as well (see: accuse, amuse, confuse, etc. Although “recluse” does work in your favor, but I always want to pronounce that at “ri: klu:z” when I see it.) I far prefer “loose.”
Thanks for the answers, everyone!
Tom Waits seems to by lobbying for ‘luce’…
My next store will specialize in poultry and profit sharing; it’ll be called “The Chicken Coop”.
I’d personally pronounce both the same way, and reine as well. I’m not feeling confident enough in my IPA skills to transcribe what my pronunciation would be, but the vowel is a diphthong. Do you pronounce one of those words with a pure [ɛ] as vowel (i.e. [ʁɛn])?
ETA: Now that I think about it, my “natural” pronunciation of reine uses a slightly different vowel than rêne and renne. It’s barely audible though, and it’s not a phonemic difference.
For what it’s worth, my dictionary (le nouveau petit robert) says those three words are homophones.
jjimm, it’s not a monthly. The New Yorker is a weëkly magazine.
:smack: I should really have remembered that as I subscribed to it for a year (from the UK).
Sure, but matt_mcl’s point was that in Quebec they are pronounced differently. I’m in Quebec and I don’t pronounce them differently. The Robert is likely to reflect European pronunciation.