Re: Diacritics in XW for E-Mail

[Wolfgang Bechstein bechstein@xxxxxxxx]

Norman Bauman  wrote:

> One solution is to just ignore the diacritical marks. The Miami Herald
> decided to drop the tildes Spanish. Then they quoted somebody saying, in
> Spanish, "I am 26 years old," and it came out meaning, "I have 26 anuses."
> They brought back the tildes.

Similar arguments are being used against abolishing the upper case/lower
case distinction in German ("ich habe in moskau liebe genossen" can mean
"I have dear comrades in Moscow" or "I have enjoyed sex in Moscow") but
ambiguities exist in every language, reformed spelling or not, and they
are usually easily resolvable by context.

Sorry for non-Xy content. I won't pursue this further.

Wolfgang Bechstein
bechstein@xxxxxxxx