Lughaidh wrote:
Btw, fuinneóg(aí) is an old spelling ; when they created the simplified spelling and the CO, they decided that since there's almost no historical short "eo", people should write "-eo" all the time instead of -eó-, to save ink
(the only words with historical short "eo" are seo, anseo, deoch and eochair -- if I remember well!).
That wasn't a C.O. innovation. Because of the scarcity of short
eo's, as you mention, not bothering with the síneadh fada had long been common - Dinneen, for example, used
eo exclusively in his dictionary.
Munster writers frequently preserved the distinction between
eo and
eó as short
eo is used in a number of dialect spellings:
leog, deocair, seochas.
I don't think it's of any consequence myself - people should be free to use it if they wish. I wonder how many thimblefuls of ink have been saved by it's omission?
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