The two little dots over a letter are called a dieresis, not an umlaut. They have various functions in different languages. In German they form (with the letter) an umlaut. (What ever that is.) In English they are one of the diacritical marks, meaning two vowels or sounds are seperated.
My own name is No�«l, an English masculine name, also a masculine name in French. It is pronounced Noe-ell and does not rhyme with bowel. My Yahoo handle is unspellable because the Yahoo software and many e-mail handlers (Not to mention other software) choke up on the dieresis so in a fit of pique I used unspellable. This well before I found the Luger forum.
I appologize for the pedantics, but you guys heppened to land on my pet gripe.
diaeresis (American English dieresis)
Pl. diaereses /-si[long]z/. Two dots placed over the second of two vowels (as in na�¯ve, Chlo�«, Elo�¯se), and occasionally in other circumstances (e.g. Bront�«), to indicate that it is sounded separately. Since the sign is often not on modern keyboards it is often omitted in printed work; and it has also usually been dropped from such familiar words as a�«rate, co�¶perate (now aerate, cooperate). Occasional examples still occur, e.g. I re�«ntered the chestnut tunnel-New Yorker,
1987.
The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, �© Oxford University Press 1968
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