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Elizabeth
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Aug 16, 2017 07:14PM

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I was struck by seeing 'Köln' spelled 'Koeln'. The old convention of placing an 'e' after a vowel that should have an umlaut when one is using a machine that is not capable of printing an umlaut has been dying rapidly, since computers pretty easily handle many and various diacritical marks.
Perhaps the dieresis (coördinate, coöperation, reëntry) will make a comeback. The New Yorker magazine uses it. But most people are unaware of it and confuse it with an umlaut. One reader posted (I forget where) a put-down of Murray Leinster (Will F. Jenkins) as ignorant for using "an umlaut"--a dieresis--in IIRC 'coördination'.

I was struck by seeing 'Köln' spelled 'Koeln'. The old convention of placing an 'e' after a vowel that should have an umlaut when one is using a machine th..."
Speaking personally, I would be quite happy for the dieresis to stay dead with a stake through its heart, and most other diacritical marks likewise. It's just one more thing to fail to remember or get wrong in a language already filled with them, not to mention all the vocabulary. And unique spelling.
Ta, L.

Presumably one arrives in Koln and leaves Koln before arriving and leaving France.
Roissy Charles de Gaulle, France 08/16/2017 5:40 A.M. Departure Scan
Koeln, Germany 08/16/2017 4:29 A.M. Departure Scan
Roissy Charles de Gaulle, France 08/16/2017 4:22 A.M. Arrival Scan
Koeln, Germany 08/16/2017 12:59 A.M. Arrival Scan

My guess is they just forgot to do the departure scan. So it arrived in France at 4:22 and they scanned it in, but then got an error message, so at 4:29 they had to register that it had indeed left Germany (7 min isn't enough time to actually travel.) Then it left France 71 min later for the US.