Diaeresed?

[spacechimp]

A letter is marked with an accent is said to be accentuated; one marked with a circumflex is said to be circumflexed. If a letter is marked with a diaeresis, what can it be said to be?" Diaeresed"? "Diaeresised"? I'd rather a more pretentious term than "umlauted".

[Quizmonster]

There is no accepted verbal/adjectival form of the word. You are at liberty, therefore, to coin one of your own such as 'diaeresisised' - if you insist - but what is wrong with 'marked with a diaeresis'? I certainly find the latter more acceptable and less contrived.

[spacechimp]

"Marked with a diaeresis", doesn't quite achieve the same affected ostentation as "diaeresised".

Thank you very much for your help.

[Quizmonster]

Space, other '...sis' words often change the first of the letters 's' to 't' when they are being extended. So, hypnosis/hypnotise, necrosis/necrotise, kinesis/kinetic and so on. Perhaps you could go for diaeresis/diaeretise?

[Quizmonkey]

Personally, I'd avoid using any of these as verbs and as a linguist have never heard it done. Umlauted is a definite no-no - as an umlaut has NOTHING to do with a diaeresis!

Accentuate sounds too vague anyway and does not distinguish between grave and acute (I assume you're talking about French). The verb 'to circumflex' means to bend round - so circumflexed is clearly wrong too.

So I'm on Quizmonster's side for this one.

[spacechimp]

Well, dictionary.com says that umlaut and diaeresis are synonyms and it also says that circumflex can mean "to mark or pronounce with a circumflex" (even if dictionary.com is not the most accurate dictionary). Although, considering that circumflex is, in itself, a past participle, "bent'ed around" may not be such an intelligent construction.

I know that accentuate doesn't distinguish between the two types, but it was just an example.

Anyway, thank you both, I think I'll avoid all of these terms (just to be safe).

[spacechimp]

And quizmonster, the only result from google for the term "diaeretise" is now this very question. ^^