Dear Peter, hi, by the way! My understanding is that role with the accent used to be the established spelling in British English, at least among educated circles. Over time, people have become more inclined to see this spelling as pretentious (as opposed to sophisticated). (After all, other imported words don't keep their original spelling (see Doppelganger), and role has become common enough that it doesn't feel like a foreign word any longer.) In particular the OED has hung on to accents on loan words. I am wondering whether in mathematics, it hasn't become perpetuated by people whose first language isn't English - I know that I've used role with the accent in the past, because that's how I thought it was supposed to be spelled (so I consistently spelled it like that in non-mathematical writings too). Non-native speakers tend to be more sensitive towards issues like that, so wanting to be very much correct, they may be more inclined to stick with the more old-fashioned version. If you look at <http://assets.cambridge.org/97805216/21816/sample/9780521621816ws.pdf> page 9/10 you'll see a discussion of the use of such accents. I've also noted that lately, many people don't bother to set in italics words such as via, presumably because it too has become viewed as a part of the language, rather than an import. That's my two pennyworth anyway. Andrea
yes, that is an interesting question. in fact, i have a similar question about the words star and dagger. although they are perfectly acceptable english words on their own, in the context of categories we write *-autonomous and %-compact, even in the titles, where star-autonomous and dagger-compact would say the same, just look easier to pronounce. but then again, with my name and surname gaining and losing accents as i go, maybe i should not ask such questions. -- du$ko On Tue, 9 Oct 2007, Peter Selinger wrote:
Hi everybody,
here is a frivolous question only tangentially related to category theory.
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? I am taking about the idiom "to play a role", as in, "in this definition, x and y play symmetric r\^oles". Sometimes it is also used as in "the r\^ole of x is ...".
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. Here are some examples I collected a few years ago:
How big a role did politics play? -Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2002 Huge bomb could play role in Iraq. -The Guardian, March 13, 2003 Australia intends to play a role in [...] Iraq, The Australian, 4/15/2003 A movie in which Nicole Kidman could play the lead role -Business Times, 1/16/3 Genetics play a big role in your health. -Citizen-Times.com, April 11, 2003 Linux prepares to play broader role in embedded systems. -EETimes, 6/11/2001 The UN would play a central role in running the country. -Guardian, 4/10/2003 His role is to lead the paddlers through the race -Waterfront News, Oct 2007 How oil plays a role in an invasion of Iraq. -YellowTimes.org, Jan 22, 2003
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). However, I have never seen it spelled with the circumflex accent anywhere outside of mathematics.
So why is it that so many mathematical authors spell it that way? One explanation would be that the authors are French; however, this does not seem to be empirically true. I have most often seen the spelling used by non-French authors. Another possible explanation is that the word "r\^ole" has a technical meaning that differentiates it from "role". However, I can't imagine what it would be.
Maybe this habit has been passed on for generations. Can it perhaps be traced back to a misspelling in some influential article?
-- Peter
participants (2)
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Andrea Schalk -
Dusko Pavlovic