Re: Writing French without accented characters?

In article <m3d5ln11kr.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> LEE Sau Dan <danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >>>>> "***" == *** T Winter <***.Winter@xxxxxx> writes:
....
[ About French où and ou.]

> >> Does the stress differ?
>
> ***> Impossible, they both are a single syllable.
>
> Then, what's the difference between the "is" in "it is impossible" and
> "it *IS* possible"?

What is the difference in meaning between the two words "is" in that
sentence? What you display here is sentence stress, not word stress.
But there is no implicit stress difference between the French "où" and
"ou" when used in a sentence. Both can be used unstressed and stressed.
Compare:
"Où est ce que tu va" (transl. "Where do you go")
with stressed and unstressed first word, and:
"Un cheval ou une vache" (transl. A horse or a cow")
with stressed and unstressed "ou"/"or".

> >> BTW, why do you find it "strange" that some homonyms are
> >> written distinctively? English has plentiful of them:
> >> "sea"/"see", "flour"/"flower", "fair"/"fare", "meet"/"meat",
> >> ...
>
> ***> Yes, I had forgotten the strange orthography of English.
>
> French orthography is even stranger: words are spelt with consonants
> that are not pronounced. Sometimes, it's a whole cluster (e.g. "-ent"
> on verbs) that is not pronounced. ;)

Oh, you pronounce all consonants in English? How do you pronounce
"through"? And in what cases is "ent" on verbs not pronounced? But
have a look at Irish with its silent syllables. Dun Laoghaire (harbour
town near Dublin), pronounce it as Dun Lairee.
--
*** t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj amsterdam, nederland, +31205924131
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn amsterdam, nederland; http://www.cwi.nl/~***/
.