Heavy metal umlaut

Abnu of Wordlab kindly draws my attention to a Wikipedia article entitled Heavy metal umlaut. This is about gratuitous diacritics in the names of rock bands.

bq. A heavy metal umlaut is an umlaut over letters in the name of a heavy metal band. Umlauts and other diacritics with a blackletter style typeface are a form of foreign branding intended to give a band’s logo a tough Germanic feel. They are also called röckdöts. The heavy metal umlaut is never referred to by the term diaeresis in this usage, nor does it affect the pronunciation of the band’s name.

Many examples and links are given.

bq. David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) in the film This Is Spinal Tap opined, “It’s like a pair of eyes. You’re looking at the umlaut, and it’s looking at you.”

2 thoughts on “Heavy metal umlaut

  1. But it’s more fun to pronounce the name of the band as if the Umlaut makes a difference! And if they’re bothered about it sounding daft, then that’s their problem for using a röckdöt in the first place!

    Röckdöt – what a great term! But perhaps not, considering how I pronounce it!) ;-)

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