Fun facts about Eyjafjallajökull
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- I haven’t heard a single American newscaster or other television cast member attempt to pronounce it, even though we usually don’t hesitate to speak other languages’ words and names when relevant to the news. Even though we often do it poorly, we at least give it a shot. But this one has stumped us.
- The native pronunciation is comically short, given the length of the word. We should return the favor by somehow making Worcestershire sauce worthy of international news coverage.
- Typing the ö is easy on Macs: hit Option-U to create the umlaut, then type the O that should go under it. This accent-vowel combining technique works with any vowel and can also be used to add the acute (á) with Option-E, the grave (à) with Option-`, or the circumflex (â) with Option-I.
- Even if you ignore that it’s a proper noun and allow substitution of the ö with a regular O tile, the number of J’s makes Eyjafjallajökull impossible to spell in an English-language Scrabble game, no matter how bad your letters are.
