Interesting Links for 05-05-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Delighted to see the Conservatives do badly in the local elections, and the Greens and Lib Dems do so well.

(tags:politics UK )

2. North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs

(tags:language English sign UK OhForFucksSake )

3. Liz Truss pushing up mortgage rates may have handed the election to Labour

(tags:conservatives mortgages economics labour )

4. Why do lorries hit bridges?

(tags:UK transport bridge accident )

5. New poll finds support for monarchy in Scotland falling rapidly (majority now support an elected head of state)

(tags:monarchy Scotland polls )

Comments

[redbird]

I had to look up the word "fada," but the symbol's used in several other European languages, often called an "acute accent." Spanish uses that symbol both to indicate which syllable to stress, and sometimes to distinguish in writing between two words. "Si" is "if," and "sí" is "yes," pronounced the same (like "too" and "two" in English).

[marymac]

Irish uses it to indicate the long vowel, which does quite substantial things to the meaning and pronunciation of names. And several government departments...

Unfortunately a lot of this stuff gets bought in from the UK, which doesn't use accents at all.