"You call that a knife?"

I hope you'll forgive me, but I'm not willing to take your word for it about "jalapeno" being incorrect. I've emailed the editors of the OED, so if they reply I'll summarise here.

You needn’t have bothered. The OED entry for jalapeño is quite clear about this:

jalapeño, n.
Pronunciation: /hæləˈpiːnəʊ/ /-ˈpeɪn(j)əʊ/ /xalaˈpeɲo/
Forms: Also (erron.) jalapena. Pl. jalapeños.
Etymology: Mexican Spanish (chile) jalapeño Jalapa chilli: see ᴊᴀʟᴀᴘ n.
orig. and chiefly U.S.
Also jalapeño pepper. A very hot green chilli pepper, used esp. in Mexican-style cooking.

CITATION:
jalapeño, n.
Additions series, 1993; online version March 2011. <http://www.oed.com/Entry/243609>
accessed 12 April 2011.

Go ahead: look it up and see for yourself. It is quite simply erroneous to write jalapeño in English without the tilde, as the OED makes clear.

Then once you’ve tired yourself out on that one, you can look up words like Allerød, señor, animé, Boötes, café crème, fiancé, fiancée, caraña, goût, hijrī, façade, fête, fräulein, garçon, gâteau, ingénue, långbanite, Madrileño, mañana, mêlée, Möbius, Mohorovičić discontinuity, Muʿallaqāt, naïveté, Nescafé, nováčekite, omertà, pâté, pièce montée, piña colada, piñata, plaçage, Provençal, chèvre, curaçao, Einfühlung, Niçoise, Qualitätswein, Québecois, quinceañera, Rōjū, rubāʿī, sertão, smørrebrød, Štokavian, téléférique, tête-à-tête, torchère, tortilla española, Tuatha Dé Danann, Übermenschlichkeit, Únětician, vargueño, vicuña, Vinča, vis-à-vis, vṛddhi, Zuñi, and chef d'œuvre, all also in the OED, and all only in the spellings as I have given them here. While you’re there, you might also take note that they admit no valid spelling of résumé shorn of its diacritics.

Don’t go running to the OED for help in writing English poorly: they actually know how to spell. 😈

Back to Perl content: good luck with things like smørrebrød, since U+00F8 LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH STROKE has no decomposition that will get you to o’s without the slashes; you need to go all the way to a full Unicode Collation comparison at the primary strength only before it counts as the same letter.

Comment on "You call that a knife?"

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Re: "You call that a knife?" by DrHyde (Prior) on Apr 13, 2011 at 10:06 UTC
I did look it up. I also looked up "cafe", which came back with "café". However, "cafe" is at least as common in modern usage. All of the citations it gives are for "café" apart from one, which sneers at the accent-less version. That one, however, is from 1929, so can't be taken as being authoritative for current usage. Now, if the OED is obviously ambiguous (and maybe out of date) for a relatively common word like "cafe", then it's reasonable to think that it may be likewise for a rare word like "jalapeno". See also the OED entry for "relais", where they give the definition as "in France: a restaurant or cafe (sometimes also providing overnight accommodation)". Note the lack of accent. As for "Don’t go running to the OED for help in writing English poorly: they actually know how to spell", you have two problems here. First, you are being rude. Second, you misunderstand the point of the OED, which is to record usage, not to prescribe usage. Or perhaps you're accusing them of poor spelling in the entry for "relais", in which case you are therefore obliged to not cite the OED when accusing me of not being able to spell.	[reply]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re: "You call that a knife?"
by DrHyde (Prior) on Apr 13, 2011 at 10:06 UTC

I did look it up. I also looked up "cafe", which came back with "café". However, "cafe" is at least as common in modern usage. All of the citations it gives are for "café" apart from one, which sneers at the accent-less version. That one, however, is from 1929, so can't be taken as being authoritative for current usage.

Now, if the OED is obviously ambiguous (and maybe out of date) for a relatively common word like "cafe", then it's reasonable to think that it may be likewise for a rare word like "jalapeno". See also the OED entry for "relais", where they give the definition as "in France: a restaurant or cafe (sometimes also providing overnight accommodation)". Note the lack of accent.

As for "Don’t go running to the OED for help in writing English poorly: they actually know how to spell", you have two problems here. First, you are being rude. Second, you misunderstand the point of the OED, which is to record usage, not to prescribe usage. Or perhaps you're accusing them of poor spelling in the entry for "relais", in which case you are therefore obliged to not cite the OED when accusing me of not being able to spell.

[reply]