What's the preferred spelling of resume?

Factual Questions
1

I’m hoping there’s some vaguely-authoritative source for this, but I have a feeling it may be doomed to IMHO. What’s the current most accepted practice for spelling “resume” (as in the document laying out your skills and employment)?

Microsoft Word insists on goofy-quotes over both "e"s, most sites I find online put it over neither, and dictionary.com lists all of them, but titles the page with goofy-quotes only over the second “e.” The American Heritage dictionary lists a historical reference with the accent only over the first “e.”

So…that’s all the possibilities. The historical first-e-only we can discount. Word’s dictionary seems to be the only one that accents both. Neither seems lazy, like I don’t know how to produce the accented e. The second-e-only seems correct to me, since it’s only the second e that’s pronounced atypically, but seems to be a minority hit (admittedly, it’s hard to search on a word that’s differently accented, and spelled the same as a much more common word).

2

The accent over both es is correct as the word is the past participle of the French résumer. OED does give the alternate spelling without accents.

Using just one of the accents is just plain wrong, OED doesn’t list it at all. (I do see it a lot though and usage does change, so it could end up as the ‘correct’ spelling.)

3

I’m in the US; so this may be a British thing. Almost every American English dictionary I can find on paper or online lists the one-accent version. In the American Heritage dictionary, dictionary.com’s online one, and a few others, it’s the preferred form. Websters lists the one-accent version now, but a paper version from 1982 doesn’t.

Resume, however it’s spelled, isn’t French any more, it’s a loan word, so its etymology is more a curiosity at this point. The base assertion in the one-accent camp is that English changes the pronunciation of accented characters, and only the second “e” has a changed pronunciation.

Apparently, debate on this makes the serial comma thing look like a minor skirmish: check out this wikipedia discussion link wherein people are practically coming to blows over it. Their more resigned language page make the same discovery I did – different dictionaries list it differently, and the preferred form isn’t universal.

Mods, this is clearly going to IMHO or CS (if you consider spelling to be literary), so feel free to move me. I won’t put up any resistance.

4

Dictionary.com lists the 2-acute version on their site. They have a separate listing for the least-correct terminal-singular version, but that is just a copy from AH.

Merriam Webster lists the 2 version, but infuriatingly, the link goes to the no-acute version, and your search comes up empty if you put any accents on.

5

It’s unlikely to be a British thing, as it’s not called a résumé over here: it’s a CV (curriculum vitae).

FWIW, my dictionary gives the two-accent spelling.

And if you were having trouble comparing the relevant accented forms on Google, here’s a tip: if you put a + sign directly before the word, it forces Google to search for exactly that form, rather than including non-accented forms.

So +résumé gives 37,300,000 hits, +resumé gives 2,820,000 hits, and +résume surprisingly gives 2,680,000 hits (which makes me wonder whether people actually give any thought as to what that accent above the e actually means…)

I thought that was a pretty overwhelming majority in favour of “résumé”, but if you restrict the search results to "nglish-language pages only, you get:

résumé = 4,190,000
resumé = 4,810,000
résume = 106,000

so a slight majority for the one-accent spelling.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’d go with two accents, as that is what my English-language dictionary lists, and it’s correct in French too. (Actually, I’d go with “CV” if I’m honest :slight_smile: )

6

Hehehe, just tried that and that’s a riot. :eek:

I think using one accent is stupid. Presumably the assertion is that you need it to distinguish résumé from resume (to re-start). I’d say you could do that by context most of the time, and if you don’t want to have to include alt-0233 in your keystroking, you might as well get rid of both accents, since neither has a place in English.

7

Or alt-130 and save yourself a keystroke.

8

Or option-e-e, which is why I always use the Mac when I need to do lots of them furrin’ characters.

I’m torn. I went with “résumé”, since I didn’t want some French pedantic to toss mine, but if I have to throw my weight behind a desired version, I’d prefer “resumé”, since it’s the only one that makes sense in English, and seems to be gaining traction.

9

Either both are accented or neither are. A single accent is just wrong. If its truly an English word and no longer a loan word, it needs no accents.

10

or apostrophe-e to get é (versus apostrophe-space-e to get 'e) if you use the US-International keyboard layout, which is basically the US one, with the accent capability. You just end up hitting space a bit more often.

Looking at my cover letter folder, I apparently am inconsistent in what I use on my English letters; I think I use resume more often, but I occasionally have résumé as well. I think I’ll have to make a choice and stick to it! Since I do tend to use the accent for Montréal and Québec, even in English, I think I’ll start using the latter.

11

Why do you say that makes sense in English? since when do we use acute accents in English?

12

In loan words to indicate that the letter still has it’s nonstandard pronunciation. See also: fiancé, café, sauté, creme brulée, etc.

13

This is probably a IMHO, but I will repeat the prime directive of language:
Always be sure what are you trying to communicate and to whom. Neither form will immediately mark you as an illiterate, so my thought is:
If the job you’re trying to get involves potentially working with French or another foreign language, editing, typography, or layout/design or for some other reason might require facility in understanding or reproducing non-US-standard characters, then I’d definitely use the correct French spelling (résumé) just so nobody wonders whether I can get foreign languages right.
If the job probably doesn’t require that, then I’d go with the unaccented form (resume), to avoid potential display errors and possible distraction in readers.

14

All those words can be, and are, spelled in English without accents. Especially “cafe.” If you use an accent on cafe, you’re consciously using a French spelling, not an English one.

15

Or even crème brûlée. :wink:

16

Yeah, I’m on a PC at the moment and don’t know the alt-codes for the accents. I bow to your superior digit-memorization skills.

17

All right, I’m a recent convert to the two-accent contingent. But there’s a remarkably good reason for using the final accent: the English verb “to resume”, with forms of which your summary of skills and experience can be easily confused in many a sentence. There’s a time honored English custom of using the acute and grave accents and the diaresis to indicate that what might otherwise be a silent e is to be sounded, and how to sound it. “Time’s wingèd chariot…” the poet wrote, indicating that one should say “wing-ed”, not “wing’d”. Tolkien’s Elf-fathers were Ingwë, Finwë. Elwë, and Olwë, each a two-syllable name ending in an -eh sound. And a shield in a checkerboard pattern is chequé, as opposed to a British or Canadian draft on one’s bank account (check-ay, vs. check in pronunciation). Ergo, there is a logical reason for using only the terminal accented E.

“He did resume writing for a living.” After taking time off following his last book’s unexpectedly high royalties? Or did he make a career out of preparing CVs for others? It’s that sort of confusion that using one or both accents is intended to avoid.

I used to prefer the final-only style, but I’ve come to see the virtue of going with the majority usage and the etymological basis for the word.

While we’re on this, may I express a personal pet peeve. “Gerald Ford, née Leslie L. King…” No. Not unless the adoption also included SRS. There’s nothing wrong with “born” and if there’s a particular reason to shorthand “whose name at birth was” with the borrowed term, keep the gender distinction. Particularly if the name, like so many names these days, is unisex, like Leslie. Né, s’il vous plait. Or even if you don’t play.

18

L-i-e-s.

19

I would hesitate to label this a “time-honored English custom.” It’s more like an unusual, increasingly vanishing, usage for certain highly specialized areas, such as poetry and fantasy.

20

We must coöperate to end naïve ideas about spelling.

(Linux likes compose characters, although Ctrl+Shift+u<code> works if you need it. I typed ö by hitting Flag " o one at a time.)