http://blogs.msdn.com/b/naturallanguage/archive/2009/03/12/why-is-chef-d-uvre-my-favorite-french-word.aspxIn this post, I would like to share with you the reasons why I love the French word chef-d’œuvre (=masterpiece). My interest for this word has nothing to do with its meaning. As a program manager working with computational linguists, I find it fascinatingen-USTelligent Evolution Platform Developer Build (Build: 5.6.50428.7875)http://blogs.msdn.com/b/naturallanguage/archive/2009/03/12/why-is-chef-d-uvre-my-favorite-french-word.aspx#9941778Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:47:36 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9941778John<p>You wrote β, beta, a Greek letter, not &#223;, eszed, a German letter.</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9941778" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/naturallanguage/archive/2009/03/12/why-is-chef-d-uvre-my-favorite-french-word.aspx#9827574Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:32:21 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9827574MSDNArchive<p>Hello,</p> <p>The form with simple &quot;oe&quot; instead of the ligature for words like œuf, sœur, œil, etc are not considered correct. The ligature is obligatory for these words and the Office spell-checker will flag the forms &quot;soeur&quot;, &quot;oeil&quot; as incorrect.</p> <p>Thierry</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9827574" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/naturallanguage/archive/2009/03/12/why-is-chef-d-uvre-my-favorite-french-word.aspx#9826376Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:56:34 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9826376Simon<p>re: note:œuf [egg], sœur [sister], cœur [heart]</p> <p>All of these are correctly spelled with simple oe, i.e. no ligature.</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9826376" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/naturallanguage/archive/2009/03/12/why-is-chef-d-uvre-my-favorite-french-word.aspx#9501301Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:47:49 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9501301Michal Boleslav Měchura<p>I my book, a digraph is a sequence of two separate characters (Unicode code points) such as the Czech &quot;ch&quot; or the Dutch &quot;ij&quot;. Digraphs are treated as two separate units at the level of orthography, but as a single unit at higher levels of analysis, such as during alphabetical ordering.</p> <p>Things like &quot;œ&quot;, on the other hand, I'd certainly call them ligatures. It's a single character, represented by a single Unicode code point.</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9501301" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/naturallanguage/archive/2009/03/12/why-is-chef-d-uvre-my-favorite-french-word.aspx#9472080Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:15:31 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9472080Natural Language Group Microsoft Office<p>Thanks, Joe, you are right, there is a lot of variation in the way this character is called. <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%92">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%92</a> and <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_%28typography%29">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_%28typography%29</a> will use the term ligature (like the Encarta dictionary and other sources, in fact), while others use the term digraph.</p> <p>Thierry</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9472080" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/naturallanguage/archive/2009/03/12/why-is-chef-d-uvre-my-favorite-french-word.aspx#9472035Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:34:47 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9472035Joe Clark<p>We would generally refer to œ as a digraph, not a ligature.</p> <div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9472035" width="1" height="1">http://blogs.msdn.com/b/naturallanguage/archive/2009/03/12/why-is-chef-d-uvre-my-favorite-french-word.aspx#9471340Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:33:26 GMT91d46819-8472-40ad-a661-2c78acb4018c:9471340Click &amp; Solve &raquo; Why is chef-d?????uvre my favorite French word? <p>PingBack from <a rel="nofollow" target="_new" href="http://www.clickandsolve.com/?p=21561">http://www.clickandsolve.com/?p=21561</a></p> <img src="http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=9471340" width="1" height="1">