But here's the thing: it's not an umlaut. It's a diaeresis. This may already be clear to the watchful student of German since ë does not exist in the German language or, by extension, the German keyboard. (I know this firsthand because I have been forced while writing this on my QWERTZ keyboard to repeatedly copy and paste it from existing text. Ah, the hidden perils of the intrepid blogger.) The diaeresis, rather than some new trendy kind of punctuation as some have said, goes way back and even predates the umlaut. Its function also differs significantly from the umlaut. The German ü,ö and ä are phonetically separate sounds from u, o and a while the diaeresis (typography nerds may insist on writing it as diæresis but even bloggers know there must be some limit to the geekery) is used to indicate that two adjoining vowels should be pronounced seperately. So, for example, coöl would be pronounced like co-ol, with two syllables instead of one.

So, now you know. Hopefully this has been a worthwhile round of reëducation. Discussions are heated in the anglofritz inner circle as to whether this site should implement the diaeresis into its style book. For what it's worth, considering the already-high frequency of German language usage here, your faithful writer is currently against it. Mind you, not really to avoid umlaut vs. diaeresis confusion, but for the well-considered reason that umlaut sounds cool while diaeresis, alas, just sounds too much like renal replacement therapy or, alternatively, what you may get after eating bad Mexican food. So, for now, we're sticking with re-education. David Remnick, you're still da man.