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Accent or no accent: Anglo
newspapers struggle with little black marks
By LAURA
WIDES-MUÑOZ
Hispanic Affairs Writer
(AP): When
journalist Aly Colón began his career, he always made the
same request to his editors—Could he please have an accent?
Colón, a
Puerto Rican native, writes his name with an accent over the
second “o” to honor the rules of Spanish grammar and uphold family
honor. When his editors said they couldn’t/wouldn’t add the slash
to his byline, Colón began adding it by hand before the paper went
to press.
“My father
told me that I had a family name, and that that was a name I was
to grow up and honor,” said Colón, “and one of the important
elements of honoring that name was spelling it right.”
Most people
with an accent in their name don’t have the option of pestering
the local copy editor, nor do they have Colón’s passion on the
issue. But with the number of Latinos in the United States rising,
up more than 18 percent since 2000 according to the U.S. Census,
and overall newspaper readership on the decline, many Anglo media
companies are looking at ways to respond to the shift in
demographics—and are rethinking just how tough it is to add the
squiggly lines.
Anglo
newspapers have long maintained that technological problems and
editorial confusion make it too difficult to add accents,
officially known as diacritical marks. For Colón, now a
faculty member at The Poynter Institute of journalism in
St. Petersburg,
Florida, it’s a question of accuracy, one of the basic tenets of
journalism.
Moreover,
the absence of accents can change the pronunciation and the
meaning of a word. For example, ask any Latino—there is a big
difference between “mama” [breast] and “mamá” [mom].
The name “Peña,”
without the tilde over the “n,” means suffering or
shame, whereas “Peña” means rock or group.
The Spanish
word for year [año] without that squiggle becomes “anus.”
Iris
Llorente, 21, of Doral whose mother emigrated to the U.S. from
Cuba, said she doesn’t expect to see accents in the Anglo/English
press.
“I don’t
take it too seriously. I usually think it’s funny when I see it
wrong,” she said. But Llorente echoed other Latino newspaper
readers when she added that seeing the accent marks “would be
nice. You always want them to get it right.”
Advertisers have been quicker to make the change.
Cartier’s
newest “La Doña” line of watches, created in honor of Mexican
actress María [not Maria] Felix, features the tilde over
the “n,” distinguishing the product from the Spanish word for
doughnut [dona]. “Doña” is a term of respect before the name of a
Latina [Spanish, from Latin
domina,
feminine of
dominus, “Lord”].
“When
you’re persuading people, you want to eliminate any barriers to
the communication,” said Carl Kravetz, chairman of the Association
of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, garble in many newspaper
computers.”
Yet the
issue is far from closed at the AP, where senior editors are
looking at ways to insert accents in the names of individuals who
prefer them. The wire service has long transmitted accents on its
non-English wires.
“It’s
something we look at all the time,” AP Stylebook editor Norman
Goldstein said. “The biggest problem is where do you stop once you
start? Doing it in Spanish would be more useful, but you can’t
just have diacritical marks for one language.”
The
technology issue is changing as more newspapers upgrade to
computer software that can read the marks. Editorial software
provider Atex Limited, which serves 50 small and medium papers
throughout the U.S. said all its systems can support accents.
Even Colón
said he sees the accent over his “o” more frequently these days.
The Los
Angeles Times instituted an official policy a few years back
to add the tilde. So did the New York Times.
La
Prensa
has always used the accents and tilde marks.
Clark P.
Stevens, chief of the paper’s copy desks, said the issue is
difficult especially for the international desk, which has the
most words to check and still gets much of its copy through e-mail
and other systems that may change the accent. Also, many Latinos
in Los Angeles have lived several generations in the U.S. and no
longer even use an accent.
But
Clark P. Stevens says he believes the trend is toward more
accents.
“It goes
back to Journalism 101 and accuracy, and identification of a
person is a primary element of information in a news story,” he
said. “We’ve been edging down the road to using accents for a
long, long time. I think we’ll go more that way.”
Editor’s
Note: Rico de La Prensa contributed to this report. By the way,
when utilizing Word Doc or PageMaker, to realize “ó” one only has
to press the “Alt” button simultaneously with the numbers of “162”
on the right keyboard. How about the others? Mark “160” for “á,”
“161” for “í,” “163” for “ú,” “130” for “é,” “164” for “ñ,” and
“165” for “Ñ.” Also, don’t forget “173” for “¡” and “168” for “¿.”
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