Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!necntc!ames!amdcad!sun!imagen!atari!portal!cup.portal.com!Isaac_K_Rabinovitch
From: Isaac_K_Rabinovitch@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Re: Multiple modifiers AND diacriticss for English
Message-ID: <640@cup.portal.com>
Date: Sat, 22-Aug-87 13:31:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: cup.640
Posted: Sat Aug 22 13:31:45 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 22:17:25 EDT
References: <15401@mordor.s1.gov> <634@cup.portal.com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 9
Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:156 sci.lang:1198
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.1472


I think accents in English are "proper" only in words that are borrowed
from continental languages.  They gradually disappear as people forget
that they are loan words (coordination was original French; coordinate
comes from coordination by back formation).  I think the heavy percentage
of loan words in English accounts for its lack of accents.  English
speaker assume that the "correct" accent is the one from the original
language, and it's impractical to remember the accenting conventions
of all the languages English has borrowed from.  The spelling inconsistencies
are quite bad enough.