breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) (01/29/86)
By the way, the correct spelling of Goedel is 'Goedel', not 'Godel'. The umlaut in German writing is best transliterated by the corresponding vowel followed by an 'e'. The German sharp-s (the thing which looks like a beta) is *best* transliterated by 'sz', but *most commonly* it is written as an 'ss'. Umlaute and sharp-s's are simply handwritten abbreviations for the letter combinations, and, unfortunately, these found their way into the printed language (the two dots are a contracted Suetterlin script 'e'). Therefore, dropping the two dots can lead to bizarre changes in meaning and connotations -- just like dropping letters in English words isn't a good idea... Thomas.
weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P. Wiener) (02/17/86)
In article <893@h-sc1.UUCP> breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) writes: >By the way, the correct spelling of Goedel is 'Goedel', not 'Godel'. >The umlaut in German writing is best transliterated by the corresponding >vowel followed by an 'e'. >[explanation deleted] I am aware that o-umlaut == oe in German. But this is English, and things get lost anyway. 'Goedel' looks too ugly to me, and I will stick with the less accurate 'Godel'. (On the other hand, 'Schroedinger' seems perfectly normal to me, so I don't mind using it.) (Perhaps because I am a logician I have seen a lot of people leave the umlauts off out of sloppiness, so of course 'Godel' looks tolerable? I don't know.) ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720