selinger@mathstat.dal.ca (Peter Selinger) asked:
Subject: categories: "role" vs. "r\^ole"
Does anyone know why it is common, in papers on logic, semantics, and category theory, to spell the word "role" the French way, i.e., with a circumflex accent? ...
Fowler, in his <i>Modern English Usage</i>, has this to say under the heading <b>Role, rôle</b>: "Though the word is etymologically the same as <i>roll</i>, meaning the roll of MS. that contained an actor's part, the differentiation is too useful to be sacrificed by spelling always <i>roll</i>. But, there being no other word <i>role</i> from which it has to be kept distinct, both the italics and the accent might well be abandoned. As to the sanctity of the French form, see MORALE." And, under <b>Morale</b>, Fowler begins: "Is a combination of pandantry and Gallicism to bully us into ... ? ... The right course is to ... abstain from the French ... , of which we have no need."
As far as I can tell, the accented spelling is a strange ideosyncrasy, given that the word "role", without the accent, is a perfectly acceptable, and very common, English word. ... I realize that Merriam Webster's Dictionary allows "r\^ole" as an alternate spelling (the Oxford English Dictionary does not, as far as I can see online). ... Maybe this habit has been passed on for generations. Can it perhaps be traced back to a misspelling in some influential article?
Fowler would call it another result of "pedantry with French words."