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'''Is it "pho" or "phở"? Why we shouldn't use Vietnamese diacritics in English-language writing.'''

'''Is it "pho" or "phở"? Why Vietnamese diacritics don't belong in English-language writing.'''

# ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', the best-known style guide, recommends using the spellings given in ''Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary'', ''Merriam-Webster Biographical Dictionary'', ''Merriam-Webster Geographic Dictionary'', and ''International Who's Who''. All four of these of reference works give Vietnamese words and names without diacritics.  

# ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', the best-known style guide, recommends using the spellings given in ''Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary'', ''Merriam-Webster Biographical Dictionary'', ''Merriam-Webster Geographic Dictionary'', and ''International Who's Who''. All four of these of reference works give Vietnamese words and names without diacritics.  

# Other standard library reference works that cover Vietnam also remove the diacritics: ''Britannica'', ''Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War'' (2011), ''Encyclopedia of Modern Asia'' (2002), ''National Geographic Atlas of the World'', and ''Lonely Planet Vietnam''.

# Other standard library reference works that cover Vietnam also remove the diacritics: ''Britannica'', ''Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War'' (2011), ''Encyclopedia of Modern Asia'' (2002), ''National Geographic Atlas of the World'', and ''Lonely Planet Vietnam''. ''Britannica'' is edited by University of Chicago Press copy editors trained in Chicago style. So looking for an example in ''Britannica'' is often a more efficient way to determine proper style than to check CMOS itself.

# Go on Amazon and search for "Vietnam" books. I guarantee that no book that comes up in the top twenty will use Vietnamese diacritics in the running text.

# Go on Amazon and search for "Vietnam" books. I guarantee that no book that comes up in the top twenty will use Vietnamese diacritics in the running text.

# They're "distracting," according to the [http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/A/accent-marks style guide of National Geographic]. We want readers to focus on the content of the article rather than the style it is written in.

# They're "distracting," according to the [http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/A/accent-marks style guide of National Geographic]. We want readers to focus on the content of the article rather than the style it is written in.

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<big>'''Executive Summary:'''</big> The current guideline recommends resolving diacritic and style issues by doing a Google Book search in order to determine “general usage.” This is an “invented here” approach not recommended by any published style guide. It is also laborious when it done correctly (as it rarely is) and is easily manipulated by partisans. The current proposal would revise the guideline to emphasize the use of reference works, in line with the recommendations of the major style guides.   

<big>'''Executive Summary:'''</big> Wikipdia guidelines recommend resolving diacritic and style issues by doing a Google Book search in order to determine “general usage.” This is an “invented here” approach not recommended by any published style guide. It is also laborious when it done correctly (as it rarely is) and is easily manipulated by partisans. The current proposal would revise the guideline to emphasize the use of reference works, in line with the recommendations of the major style guides.   

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We need guidance that is short, sweet, and based on the advise of style specialists. All the major guides recommend that editors consult a widely available reference work, preferably a general purpose dictionary from a major publisher. The current guideline includes the parenthetical clause "including other encyclopedias and reference works." This clause suggests that editors are already permitted to follow the approach outlined below. But it needs to be made clear that this is the preferred approach, the one the experts recommend. The guides recommend various dead tree dictionaries for use as a first reference. But their online counterparts obviously make more sense for our purposes.

We need guidance that is short, sweet, and based on the advise of style specialists. All the major guides recommend that editors consult a widely available reference work, preferably a general purpose dictionary from a major publisher. The current guideline includes the parenthetical clause "including other encyclopedias and reference works." This clause suggests that editors are already permitted to follow the approach outlined below. But it needs to be made clear that this is the preferred approach, the one the experts recommend. The guides recommend various dead tree dictionaries for use as a first reference. But their online counterparts obviously make more sense for our purposes.

I propose replacing the text in [[WP:DIACRITICS]] with the following:

I propose replacing the following standard for diacritics:

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| style="background:#E0FFFF;" |'''Mihály Vörösmarty'''

| style="background:#E0FFFF;" |'''Mihály Vörösmarty'''

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