Talk:naïve

English: naïve vs. naive

If I am right, "naïve" is not an English word. In English it is "naive," was derived from "naïve." — This unsigned comment was added by 121.220.69.133 (talk) at 06:04, 28 December 2007.

In books written by Donald Knuth in American English it was "naïve", so it is English. MTJM 09:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

In misspelt English it is naive. As far as I know, naïve is the preferable spelling. Bogorm 14:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Not per GNV; and no source was provided to show what kind of pundits prefer the spelling, with what kind of rationale. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

A section on Etymology is missing that ought to explain this. --Javalenok (talk) 07:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

naïve and naive are alternative spelling of the same word with naive being by far the most common spelling. -- PBS (talk) 15:28, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Discussion heading "English: naïve vs. naive" added. "naive" is far more common per naive, naïve at Google Ngram Viewer; before 1990, "naïve" was on the order of 250 times less common than "naive" per GNV, a frequency ratio suggesting "naïve" would be a misspelling. However, there can be OCR normalization of "naïve" to "naive", and therefore, GNV should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt. On the other hand, if this were OCR normalization, what would explain the rise of "naïve" after 1990, reaching the frequency ratio of 6 in 2008?

M-W:naive[1] states "variants: or naïve"; other dictionaries indicating "naïve" to be a variant or to be after "or" include Lexico[2], AHD[3], Collins[4], Macmillan[5], and dictionary.cambridge.org[6]; OED[7] has entry "naive, adj.", which says "Forms: 16– naive, 16– naïve.". None of the inspected dictionaries indicates "naïve" as the main canonical spelling to be used in preference over "naive". --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:57, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

As for possible sources of prescription of "naïve" with diaeresis, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 5th Edition, 2015, has an item "naïf, naïve, naïveté" in something like its dictionary part, but no item for "naive"; thus, "naïve" could be their preferred spelling.

By contrast, Garner's Modern English Usage, fourth edition, 2016, states that the "standard adjective is naive (without diaeresis) [...]". --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

As for older dictionaries, Century 1911[8] has "naïve" with diaeresis as the sole spelling, and so does Webster 1898[9]. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Etymology

Where does this writing actually come from? Is this the only english word written with a diaresis? Tresznjewski (talk) 14:44, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

word; yes, to my knowledge. However some English names use it, like Zoë and Brontë 58.179.17.120 17:04, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

There are actually a number of other English words that occasionally use this, such as coöperate, noöne, and others, but these have become extremely rare. Eric Schiefelbein (talk) 09:37, 11 September 2023 (UTC)