Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Username

Pdaines

Member Since

August 7, 2013

Total number of comments

1

Total number of votes received

0

Bio

Latest Comments

Resume, resumé, or résumé?

  • August 7, 2013, 12:03am

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!