I am in the mood to talk about accent marks. Lòók closely, please. Accent marks have a primary purpose, and it is not decorative. Strictly speaking, accent marks aren’t optional, nor are they interchangeable. If the accent marks should be acute (as in Résumé), it would be wrong, acutely wrong, to substitute grave accents. And leaving them out can lead to confusion. I resume….
Occasionally, an accent mark can also be a design element. The Dieu Donné wordmark about which we wrote recently, is a beautiful example. The wordmarks for Angèle and À Côté also accord their accent marks design prominence. We say, accentuate the positive!
Diacritical marks are gaining favor as style statements. Such touches are a bit faux, though perhaps not très faux. And sometimes they are clever, downright ünboring (an excellent Ikean word). Montreux in Switzerland has no circumflex over the e, but a developer in Nevada resorted to one when naming the Montrêux Golf and Country Club, presumably for a soupçon of Euro-flavour. (Scenic detour: The luggage label for the Grand Hôtel Continental in Montreux puts the circumflex where it belongs.)
Roz Chast pays hilarious tribute to diacritical marks in The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!, with text by Steve Martin. The endpapers (which would make über-fab wrap) are populated by “special characters” bemoaning the fact that they have been left out of the book. The É points to the È and exclaims, “You rule!” and the È replies, “No, you!” Très drôle! And, speaking of droll, my favorite spread in the book is for the letter X. An extremely wacky office scene features a desk with drawers labeled: Extra Pencils, Extra Pens, Excuses & Explanations, and Ex-customers. Martin’s couplet rhymes axed with slacks.
For a deeper discussion of diacritical marks, I like quirky QWERTY: A biography of the typewriter and its many characters, by Torbjörn Lundmark. Lots of esoterica, including a spread about the Euro symbol. $peaking of money, you can buy the hardback (2002) online for a pittance. The Penguin paperback, with a typewriter-key Q on the cover, is harder to come by.
P.S. Coming Monday: The Softspot Exhibition at the Academy of Art University. This student project is the crème de la crème and then some.
