Diacritics or …..

What the heck IS a ….. Diacritic?

Oh sure, everyone is a critic, but only John McClane is a … Die Hard Critic!

Well, according to Dictionary.com (my personal favourite on-line dictionary, along with my personal favourite on-line thesaurus Thesaurus.com!) ….

diacritic

[ dahy-uh–krit-ik ]

SEE SYNONYMS FOR diacritic ON THESAURUS.COM

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noun

Also called diacritical mark. a mark, point, or sign added or attached to a letter or character to distinguish it from another of similar form, to give it a particular phonetic value, to indicate stress, etc., as a cedilla, tilde, circumflex, or macron.

And might as well weigh in with Wikipedia as well …..

A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός (diakritikós, “distinguishing”), from διακρίνω (diakrī́nō, “to distinguish”). Diacritic is primarily an adjective, though sometimes used as a noun, whereas diacritical is only ever an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute ( ´ ) and grave ( ` ), are often called accents. Diacritical marks may appear above or below a letter, or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.

In no way shape or form do I claim to know much about … diacritics! I just think they are cool! And with so many languages and countries on our Pale Blue Dot, (see my post the other day!), it makes for potentially the most amazing alphabet soup .. EVER!

And, for those who love puns … and that means all of you (!), for your amusement!

ḎíǟćŔīṬĨ誠 ḎíǟćŔīṬĨčŞ