Resume, resumé, or résumé?

Have you noticed "grave" doesn't have one?

é è
>
\__/

http://crystalresumes.com/resspell.html

Well you're wrong. The dictionary has it as pronounced: résumé. You just pronounce it wrongly. Your version has "re-" rhymes with 'the', as in 'the-zoom-ay' but in fact the cognoscenti say "ray-zoom-ay". Oh well, never mind.

'Truth Whisperer' suggested in July that 'To spell or pronounce it other than the U.S. English norm is an affectation. The practice is right up there with using French words that people believe will afford a certain caché to a business, party, luncheon'.
Oh dear. You have yourself used a French word that you suppose will afford ... "caché??"
You mean cachet, I think. I am minded of the advertisement I saw in the local newspaper to sell a house round here in a "sort after area". If you want to employ fancy talk, get it right, I say. I always do.

Résumé contains letters that are not in the English alphabet.
You might not believe it, but these all differ somewhat: the alphabets in English, French, German (with the umlauts), the Nordic languages (with slashes through letters, and often with umlauts, too), Spanish, Dutch, etc.
In Spanish "ll" is often treated as a separate letter, and there is the "n" with a tilde over it. In Dutch, "ij" is often treated as a separate letter, and you could get typewriters with "ij" on its own key. How about keyboards for computers?

I quote you: "I realize I have tread ...". In England we say "I have trodden ..". Otherwise fairly lucid, thank you.

All fine and good until some starts using resume, the noun, as a verb: "Resume me and I'll forward it to my HR department."

Without the accents, when used as a noun, it is not likely to be confused with the verb. But we see this conversion of nouns to verbs regularly now. Text, email, instant message, Tebow....

With accents I'm reminded that this is an adopted foreign word and is pronounced diferrently than the spelling indicates. Still, I agree that the steps required to include the accent(s) seem a waste of time, since I would never use it as a verb myself. But, one look at my daughters' posts on Facebook or text messages, strengthens my resolve not to give in to the abbreviation, concatenation, and transmogrification of the written English language.

Keep the accents on résumé or one day some one might assume you meant resume.

"...pronounced diferrently than the spelling indicates..." - oh dear.

...pronounced differently from how the spelling indicates...

...pronounced other than how the spelling may suggest, given that English spelling does not really indicate a word's pronunciation.

The acute accents don't really matter, by comparison with the horror of "diferrently than" but they should be there. I agree with Brain on this one.

As someone who abhors much of the recent changes (read:misuse) in the English language (myself in place of "I" or "me" in almost every context, "orientated", the misuse of the word "literally" etc), I understand your point, Brain.

However, I'd imagine the potential for the word "resume" as a noun to become used ubiquitously as a verb meaning "send one's resume" is very slight indeed, precisely because of the obvious potential for confusion as you've astutely noted. A living language will adapt and change based on what its speakers find to be necessary or expedient, (which is why the accents disappeared in the first place). Because of what would be an almost unavoidable contextual confusion in many (if not most) instances between the existing verb "resume" and a verbified version of the noun "resume" in written communication, it's hard to see how such a usage transformation would be seen as necessary or expedient. Accordingly, it seems very unlikely that we'd see such a usage metamorphosis (usamorphosis? ;) )...unless, in a sort of syntactical "natural selection", users of this new verb decided that they then wanted to resume using the accents in résumé in order to be able to use the verbified resume without confusion. I'm betting most people would stick with "email me your resume" rather than have to take up always using the accents on the noun, which it has been noted can apparently be relatively laborious, depending on one's circumstances.

Caché? Did someone write that?

Some years ago I worked for an employment firm, writing resumes for clients. Most people were said to have resumes, but we referred to the employment and publication histories submitted by medical and academic professionals (which were generally longer) as CVs or curriculum vitae.

Bruce Kennedy--do you know M. Thorsby and S. Mitchell and T. Flood?

Lon Johnson- sadly I have no knowledge of these three individuals. Give me a hint, are they Kansans, were they in the Marine Corps or Navy? Or possibly there is another Bruce Kennedy with which you may have me confused. Sorry I could not be of any help.

I thoroughly enjoyed your posts. They reminded me of posts by someone I know, but if you are unfamiliar with these three individuals, you are not the person I am thinking of.

I look forward to your future posts.

While American dictionaries mainly list résumé as the main spelling, they also seem to allow two variants, resumé and resume. British dictionaries, on the other hand, don't.

As others have already pointed out, in British English we usually use C.V. with this meaning, but we do use résumé with a less specific meaning of summary - "I gave him a quick résumé of events" - Macmillan Dictionary.

But strangely enough my spell check is not recognising any variant with accents.

In my book a résumé is a shortened CV, and resume is a verb.

@Twain's Tapeworms.
1. We presumably capitalise CV because it's based on the title of a document. In any case this is the standard way it's shown in dictionaries, which is good enough for me.

2. Using full stops (periods) with intitialisms like this is mainly a style choice nowadays, isn't it? Again, the 5 (British) dictionaries I've checked all show CV without punctuation.

In fact if you google CV, with or without periods, you will see that virtually all the first page entries use capitals and no periods.

3. In Britain, it's using résumé (in any spelling you want) that would be considered affected - CV is the standard term for us.

4. If you're going to dump French, noble or otherwise, you're going to get rid of a hell of a lot of the language, n'est-ce pas?

PS - Personally I wouldn't use periods with that one either, but it's your choice: http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/punctuation-in-abbreviations
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/english/2005/05/punctuation_in_.html

After reading comments here for at least an hour, I had to give my interpretation of the use of the word 'resumè' in the framework of the English language.

Now, as we know, Rèsumè and Resume have the same spelling in English, in Australia I dare say that they are both pronounced basically the same (by the majority of people) up until the final letter, so therefore, for English users, I believe we should only use the inflection on the final 'e', to distinguish between both words when written.
Why must we spell it 'rèsumè' if we don't pronounce the entire word as someone from France? I believe most of us say 'reh-zu-may' for resumè and a toss up between ree-zyoom, or reh-zyoom for resume. All 3 words are constructed very similar at the beginning, which is why I believe we need not use the first acute E when spelling resumè.

It shows a common courtesy to the French language itself as we have lifted that word for our own use, especially as we still carry the inflection verbally on the final letter only.
I can't recall hearing any English speaking person pronounce both of the acute E's.

Another word that comes to mind which carries the same inflection in the English language that also holds its original French pronunciation is 'cafè'. The spelling of cafè still carries the acute E, as that sound doesn't exist in the English language unless we spell it to be so, like... CAFFAY or something similar.
It is also acceptable to not spell it with the acute E, as there is no other word that it can be confused with. The general English speaking population understand this and has accepted the English translation of simply 'cafe' without an acute E, we will still say it with the inflection, even though it is not spelled that way at all times.

My personal choice - resumè and cafè

correction! I was using alt-138 for è instead of 130 for é...really should have proof read before submitting.

... and now in 2013, on a Mac, you can just hold down the letter e (or a,i,o,u) and mouse over the desired diacritical mark.

This is awesome. I would love if someone with a Ph. D in English and teaching at an American university to weigh in

Oh please!! (exasperated tone). You do not need a Ph.D. or any teaching, just learning. By the age of 11 my generation knew that all it takes is a look in a dictionary: it says résumé in mine, and that's that. That's a French dictionary, of course.

If you want to do without the accents, do without both. You cannot do one without the other, as the old song goes. It's all or nothin'.

Keep it comin'.

You're all wrong. It's pronounced 're-ZOOM-ay' and spelled 'reiklsn6mssslk/tyé'.

No, no, you're wrong. It is pronounced "RAY-zoom-ay" and is spelled with both acute accents. And that's the end of it. If you want to use a French word for a summary, at least spell it correctly and pronounce it the French way, or why bother choosing it in the first place?

@Brus and Eoin - I think you're both partly correct as regards French punctuation - I make no comment as to its standard punctuation in American English. An e acute is normally pronounced quite short in French (e as in bed) rather than ay (as in ray) - and French dictionaries give the pronunciation /ʀezyme/ (rezoome) rather than /ʀeɪzymeɪ/ (rayzoomay). However it is true that the second e does get elongated a bit and ends up nearer /eɪ/.(ay). Of course if you're really going to do it à la française, you need to do something about the R as well (but that might come over as a bit pretentious). You can hear it pronounced here:

http://translate.google.com/#auto/fr/summary

I love this discussion. Although I did not take time to read all of it because I began at 2004 and I don't have that kind of time to invest in a rhetorical discussion, it makes me want to RESUME study of my rudimentary high school French; makes me REALLY want to take Latin; and encourages me to ALWAYS listen to all viewpoints as that is haven't forgotten anyone! what encourages conversation and the eternal evolution of language. BTW? I'm just a poor ol' elementary school teacher. No real credentials, CVs, or resumes to speak of . . .

Speedwell2, go home you're drunk.

I, too, didn't read this whole thread--who knew the word "résumé" could inspire a nearly 10-year discussion? I'm in the publishing industry in America, and after being queried by a client about common usage for accent placement in résumé, I went looking for an explanation. After reviewing many sources (FYI: "résumé" is the first listing in Webster's Dictionary), reading through a good chunk of this thread, and knowing how important it is to edit for clarity, here's my takeaway: Because "resume" currently has two meanings in common American English usage, using "resume" when you actually mean "résumé" can cause readers to pause--even if it's imperceptible--to interpret meaning. This interrupts the flow of reading. There is no question in anyone's mind what "résumé" means (even if some consider it pretentious), so I will continue to use both accent marks for clarity.

This was a great help. Even though I couldn't type "résumé", I was able to copy and paste it. Thanks anyway! Post Stamp : This whole coment discussion is quite hilarious.

To my eye, resume looks too plain for its fine european provenance. Since noone has offered a compelling reason to use only one accent, I suppose Ill use both. Thank you all for the entertainment with my english lesson.

For all the high brow "academics" out there - "Curriculum Vitae" is also what Playboy calls the "résumé" of the Playmate of the Month!

Will, regarding "An e acute is normally pronounced quite short in French (e as in bed) rather than ay (as in ray)", I'm afraid I must disagree. The "-ay" in English is a diphthong, starting with a short e (-eh as in 'bed") and ending in a long e (-ee as in free). In French, the acute-accented e is not a diphthong, but it's not a short e or a long e either. It's actually, oh, roughly halfway between the two. This phoneme doesn't exist in English, so -ay is as close as English can approximate it.

Will and Porsche,
I think you're both sort of right about the pronunciation of French é. It's basically the first half of our "ay" diphthong in English. It's actually pretty close to the "e" in English "bed" and I'd say that's our best approximation. However English phonotactics (I hope I'm using the right term here) don't allow the short "e" sound (or indeed any short vowel sound) at the end of a word, so "ay" is the best approximation we can make for final é. That's why the two é's are pronounced differently in English, and why some people choose to put the accent on the second "e" only.

Guys, would y'all comment on the correct spelling of cafe when used in English correspondence? I want to meet two girl-nerds for coffee (two is always better than one), and I'm composing with a formal email just now; therefor, I must get my spelling spot-on. Should I use an accent in the spelling? And how should I pronounce cafe when in the States? When I'm in Quebec, then should I pronounce café differently (I'm not Quebecois)? I assume it's pronounced correctly as "coffee" wherever I go since I'm natively English-speaking, so must I always pronounce café as coffee? And write it as cafe, non? Do you get me? Really? Thanks loads y'all! By the way, and sorry for the digression, but this may come in handy; is it 'an hotel' or 'a hotel'?

Oh Mon Dieu! I forgot about the Italian caffè, now I'm really confused, and time is of the essence. Same goes as before; what is a boy-nerd-person to do?

In the US or Canada I would say that café is the place to go to have coffee when speaking English (either variety). And yes, I would use the accented-e when spelling it. So you can "go get some coffee" or "would you like to meet me at the café for a cup." BTW - Hortons, Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks are not café's (maybe Starbucks depending on location.)

And though usually with a soft word like hotel, you would think that 'an' would be proper, but it sounds funny to me (since I use a hard H in my New York hotel.)

The correct spelling is "resumé." The word is pronounced reh•zuh•may; not ray•zuh•may. The reason for one accent and not the other is that the accent isn't there for decoration: it determines how the vowel is pronounced.

I agree with this line of thought! If you are posting this using the Internet, you are capable of looking at an online dictionary (or forvo, Bing translator, babel fish, etc.) Is this a contest? Does the 'last' poster win? No and there are enough reference materials out there for a definitive answer. I'm a well-traveled American and this is a joke at our expense. What do you call a person that speaks three languages? (trilingual) What do you call a person that speaks two languages? (bilingual) What do you call a person that speaks one language? (American) It's funny and sad at the same time and I'm sure I'll be the new target for that sacrilege : )

Now just for fun go to forvo.com and type in resume. The results will include pronunciation results for resume and résumé on separate lists. Listen to the pronunciation by Americans, Canadians, (1) German and, at last, saintsaens21 (Male from France.) Which do you favor? This is interesting because you have people telling each other exactly how it should be pronounced, but have a French native pronounce it and it is almost unrecognizable to the American ear.

Truthwhisperer|:

Q: What do you call a person who asks "what do you call a person that asks..."?
A: An American.
Q: Is the relative pronoun 'who/whom/whose' redundant over on that side of the Atlantic?
A: Yup/Yep/Yuh/Ja. Seems so.
Q: Why?

Warsaw Will: I like your answer. I still think that if you are going to use one accent on a word which has two you had might as well use them both. Idle to show you can, then don't. Once you have cracked the keyboard code to insert the accent, use it, I say.
How do you make a circumflex? I can't do melee until I find out.

See http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/finetypography/ht/circumflex.htm for circumflex. It's easier on a Mac than in Windows.

Hi Brus,

To make ê type alt-136 (on the numeric keypad): mêlée
At least that's how I do it.

On my keyboard (no separate numerical pad) , there is a ^ sign above the 6. So I just do - shift + 6 + e - which gives me ê. As simple as that.

The AutoCorrect option is a wonderful tool. Thanks for reminding us Detail Queen. I use it to type acronyms for long medical conditions lHSS (Idiopathic Hypertrophic Subaortic Stenosis.) How many times would you like to type that? A virtual reunion? I love it - count me in!!

From a linguistic perspective, resumé seems the most rational. Résumé would imply the French pronunciation ray-zu-may, which is clearly incorrect as well as awkward. Resume is reasonable from the standard of anglicizing the thing. But there are tons of things that we never really anglicize, or only half-way anglicize. The real standard should be what makes sense in English. As far as pronunciation goes, resumé is accurate. We have the added benefits of explicitly distinguishing "to resume," and one less confusing word where an apparently mute "e" starts shouting unexpectedly!

I think we can all agree that there is a difference between the different ways of spelling resume and cat versus kat. After all, in no dictionary are you going to find kat or elefant or phish, yet many dictionaries contain all three versions of resume. If people begin to alter the way they spell these words often enough that they become synonymous, then will I agree with you.
ps. sorry about the name change, the site wouldn't let me submit under anonymous#2 again.

Except it apparently did.. strange

I take the view that fish is correct, phish is not, I was using your logic to show that it is not sound, and you agree with me. If the dictionary allows one accent on resume where the French one does not, then I go with the French, I am afraid, for that noble language is proud of its purity, and the Academie Francaise has a language committee to stamp out impurities, while English is proud of not being very fussed, sometimes.
And let us remember George Bernard Shaw who would have us think "ghoti" is a way to spell fish, as in enough = gh = f, motion = ti = sh, and I forget why o = i, but it's all very silly, although he meant it. Perhaps 'o' in "simpleton" for example sounds like 'i'.
Why should you not change your name with each piece you send in? Shakespeare would have been proud of you. And as you say, you didn't.

From a practical perspective, it seems sensible for people using whatever version of the English language that applies in their country, to not use accents because most people don't know how to insert accents when typing in English. (It's not difficult to do and Word's help function will give you the instructions to do it, but most people don't want to be bothered.) In any event, the meaning is going to be clear by the context in which the word is being used.

What I found interesting is that in the French version of monster.com (ie monster.fr), the term CV is used.

resumé, or résumé?
I'm with you there, Tango. We don't have accents in English, as we all know, so when we use them in words borrowed from other languages, such as French, why use them? Well, I say, if we do borrow them, let us borrow them intact. Resume pronounced résumé is now an English word, needing no written accents. Résumé with both accents is a French word borrowed by English, unchanged. If resumé is not found in French why would we have it in English? It is indeed amusing that the French do not use their own word for a curriculum vitae, but borrow that term intact from Latin, as do we also when we can't, through ignorance, find the acute accent in Word. I do, anyway.

Brus: o = i in "women".

Oops, it would help to include the URL: http://www.crystalresumes.com/resspell.html

1) what a hilarious thread!
2) thank you to fancy_dave who said, on February 7, 2005: "The punctuation marks on top of the letter 'e' in French are for pronunciation, not for 'accenting' the sound ...." and thereby cleared up the ridiculousness of mistaking French accent marks for "stress" marks.
3) thank you as well to speedwell2, who said, on June 25, 2004: " ... I should add that in most of the US the unaccented form is preferred; the accented form is thought of as a sort of affected overcorrectness."

THIS POST IS NOW CLOSED.

Oh, no it's not!

YOUR A WIZARD HARRY!

No that's My line

I was annoyed the second or third time my husband asked why i typed ( resume') !!!
WOW, I had no idea how many others had this ongoing debate...

regarding what the drop kick said: you put an extra 'the' and... ReZomA. ReZomA. wow. I never realized how much I hate illiteracy

"You are all the wrong the real word is pronounced 'Re-Zoom-A' and is spelt ReZomÀ"

Thank you everyone you cleared up everything for me, and I can't believe this discussion has been going on for five-years!

xkcd now has the definitive answer to this:
http://www.xkcd.com/

Permanent link: http://www.xkcd.com/1647/

I'm fairly certain that in american society today, the word should be, correctly, pronounced in E-Bonics,
since our american culture is now 97.3%
wanna-bees, and 'resume' (ain't nuttun but a thang).

single: curriculum vitae
plural: curricula vitarum

A glance in your French dictionary makes it clear that the first and last syllables have acute accents, so the word means 'summary' or more exactly 'summarised'. It is pronounced Ray-zoom-ay, after all.

If we think it is pronounced 'resume-ay' we must think it means 'picked up where we left off' rather than 'summary' or 'summarised', and we are wrong then, no? That is why we need two accents, one on the first, another on the final syllable.

Pronouncing this word as otherwise than Ray-zoom-ay is just plain wrong. Sandymc44 tells us that he or she was taught at college to pronounce the first syllable as long "a" (so RAH!! Rah-zoom-ay, then? Oh dear!). If long "a" means as in English then Ay, then Ray-zoom-ay, as we are insisting, which is indeed correct. You tell us you were taught it at college, but that it is wrong. Well it isn't: it is correct!

My English dictionary, which has the word with both accents as in French, nevertheless gives the pronunciation as res- as in bet, and the emphasis on the first syllable, which is more natural. Someone suggested emphasising the final syllable, which would be like doing so to the English resumED which would be hard to do, indeed, and frankly quite daft.
I say that if you choose to use a French word as in this case, then pronounce it as in French, or why use it at all? Or use curriculum vitae, much better.

Resume and CV are far more common than the rest in print. There are keyboard issues with entering accents for many users.

Copy this to your browser address line for the evidence:
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=resume_NOUN%2Cr%C3%A9sum%C3%A9%2Cresum%C3%A9%2CCV%2Ccurriculum+vitae&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1950&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cresume_NOUN%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bresume_NOUN%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BResume_NOUN%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BRESUME_NOUN%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cr%C3%A9sum%C3%A9%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Br%C3%A9sum%C3%A9%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BR%C3%A9sum%C3%A9%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BR%C3%89SUM%C3%89%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cresum%C3%A9%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bresum%C3%A9%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BResum%C3%A9%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BRESUM%C3%89%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2CCV%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BCV%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bcv%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCv%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BcV%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Ccurriculum%20vitae%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bcurriculum%20vitae%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCurriculum%20Vitae%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCurriculum%20vitae%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCURRICULUM%20VITAE%3B%2Cc0

From the number of differing comments displayed here over at least six years merely confirms that there is really no correct/incorrect way in which this counfusing word should be written, let alone pronounced.
I believe that it comes down to the manner in which it is used (by the writer - presuming she/he knows what they're doing-oh, dear LOL) in the users own area of residence.
Personally, I have considered the correct way is "resumé" for the following reasons -
1) Writing/spelling it in this way, especially in isolation, shows the reader she/he should not considering 'continuing' in any manner. In other words "I am a list of experiences concerning the person named in this paper".
2) Pronunciation should be as "ey" to ensure the listener(s) understands what this word indicates "that this form/letter (CV-lol) is a list of experiences of the named person, do not continue 'doing' anything - except to use one's ears". It assures the listener that she/he only has to listen, you are not expected to continue with any manual 'work'.

You write The mark in question is an "accent",
Should not the comma (and period) in American style be enclosed within the unquote?

Message to Americans: please do not attempt to pronounce French words. Unless you have studied French in France or unless you have been taught by native French speakers, please, please, please don't bother. You always get it so, so wrong.

This applies to Americans trying to pronounce the words of any other language. It's really embarrassing to hear when an American tries to be clever and pronounces words of other languages with an American accent.

Interesting page. Clarified acute vs grave. However, I am thrown by the idea of not using the accent. With the acute accent mark I know it is the "hire me" document. Without it I first read resume, as in continue. Sure, context clarifies but my brain still sees resume.

Thanks for the enlightenment.
This is better than working on my resume any day :)
---------------------------------------------
SUMMARY (thank you for everyone's posts!):

[for context: i'm a native american english speaker]

1. In this post i learned the French pronounce as
rayzumay

2. i always heard it as
rezumay

So thank you, now the
re'sume' spelling makes sense.

And somehow like so many loan words, the pronunciation changed in its english usage.

3. CONTEXT MATTERS:
Like mentioned wind and wind cause no confusion IN CONTEXT (blowing wind or to wind a clock).
Same goes if we resume using resume for practical English usage.

4. Don't forget perhaps the most wisdom already mentioned:
Use resume without any accents in English for electronic postings (for less translation errors).
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