The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Minnesota's great umlaut war is over

Today, we bring you urgent and breaking news out of Minnesota, where a battle over umlauts has been — well, not raging. What is the more polite version of raging? Occurring? Happening? Gently taking place? Something like that.

Anyway! Minnesota. Umlauts. See, there is a city in Minnesota that had been known as Lindström — or, if you saw the signs greeting you on the way in or out of town in recent years, Lindstrom.

Via Brian Yoder on MyFaceGoogleBookPlusSpace, Minnesota’s great umlaut war is over (also, Minnesota was having an umlaut war) - The Washington Post

My first thought was couldn't the MDOT just spell it “Lindstroem?” But then I read that Lindström has a sister city in Sweden, Tingsryd, and I wasn't sure if the umlaut served the same function in Swedish as it did in German. It turns out it doesn't, and the “ö” in Swedish is a distinct character, unlike in German where the “ö” is a shorthand notation for “oe.”

It all turned out fine though, the MDOT is going around adding umlauts on all the Lindström signs.

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