Monday, September 9 OT – My Coäxial Cable Will Not Coöperate

Those two dots over the second syllable in the C words above, easily mistaken for umlauts, are called "diaereses". The single form is "diaeresis" (rhymes with "die, heiresses"). It's used in every issue of The New Yorker ever. It's annoying, and you're not the only one to be annoyed by it. Everybody hates it.

Chas Addams, 1961

Some people might think "coefficient" is pronounced "co fishent" without the hyphen or diaeresis. Without clarity some people might think "coin" is pronounced "co en" which sounds like a Jewish surname. "Coitus" might be heard as "co-itis" which I hear is catching and leads to unsightly scars. Utter chaos. Nationwide anomie. So I guess TNY's use is defensible?

Mary Norris, longtime copy editor and "Talk of the Town" contributor for The New Yorker, remarks on the obsolete symbol:  

Basically, we have three options for these kinds of words: “cooperate,” “co-operate,” and “coöperate.” Back when the magazine was just getting started, someone decided that the first misread and the second was ridiculous, and adopted the diaeresis as the most elegant solution with the broadest application. The diaeresis is the single thing that readers of the letter-writing variety complain about most.

As far as I know, The New Yorker is the only publication which still uses it and was already out of fashion when the magazine began publication in 1925. She concludes her piece with the legend of the curse:

We do change our style from time to time. My predecessor (and the former keeper of the comma shaker) told me that she used to pester the style editor, Hobie Weekes, who had been at the magazine since 1928, to get rid of the diaeresis. She found it fussy. She said that once, in the elevator, he told her he was on the verge of changing that style and would be sending out a memo soon. And then he died.

This was in 1978. No one has had the nerve to raise the subject since.

I like hyphens, dashes, and parentheses a bit too much. I dislike semicolons. I usually employ the Oxford comma. I don't think I've ever used a diaeresis until today. I suppose it partially depends on which style handbook you were taught in high school. I've never used the University of Phoenix Interrobang™ and I'll never use the Trump University Greatest Comma Like You've Never Seen™ as taught in the SUPER EXCITED EXTRA SPECIAL BIGBOY SHOUTY STYLE MANUAL™ no matter how many big strong men with tears in their eyes ask me to. Except as a joke, or on Truth Social. Which I guess amounts to the same thing.

Talk as though your ass is on fire and you're trying to get the attention of a firefighter below.