Some of you might have noticed, both in
dictionaries and in
publishing, the use of the
diaeresis (pronounced
dye-era-sis) to denote the second syllable of two adjacent like vowels. Thus, the word
reelection is rendered
reëlection, and the word
cooptation becomes
coöptation.
Lately, I've decided I like both the look and clarity of this diacritical mark. Substitutions within my own texts amount to nothing more than six conditional globals, but I've noticed that the change can introduce false-corresponding characters in certain fonts. Since I can only check the result against the e-readers I own or live with (Sony Readers, a Kindle and a Nook), I'd love to know whether the problem exists for other e-readers or if there's something I should do to create a standardized alternative. After all, the diaeresis does look identical to an umlaut.
What do you suggest? I love the specificity which the diaeresis affords the pronunciation of less-familiar words -- particularly the neologisms which I like to create.
And while we're on the subject, how do my fellow writers and formatters prefer to implement the use of relatively uncommon characters?