* * * * *
                                        
                      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 [1]”

My first thought was couldn't the MDOT (Minnesota Department of
Transportation) just spell [2] it “Lindstroem?” But then I read that
Lindström has a sister city in Sweden, Tingsryd [3], 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 [4], 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.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis_(diacritic)#Printing_convent
[3] http://tingsryd.se/
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_orthography

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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