This is also a stylistic choice that the New Yorker magazine uses for words with double vowels where you pronounce each one separately, like coöperate, reëlect, preëminent, and naïve. So possibly intentional.
replyYes, this is exactly correct, and I will die on this hill. Additionally, I don't like the way a hyphenated "techno-optimism" looks and "technOOPtimism" is a bit too on-the-nose.
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replyThat makes sense[1] but it prompts the obvious question: does this style write it as typeö then?
reply1: Though personally I hate it, I just cannot not read those as completely different vowels (in particular ï → [i:] or the ee in need; ë → [je:] or the first e here; and ö → [ø] or the e in her)
No. Firstly because it is spelled “typo.” Secondly you typically use the diaeresis to tell the reader to not confuse it with a similarly spelled sound or diphthong. So it tells a reader that “reëlect” is not pronounced REEL-ect, “coöperate” is not COOP-uh-ray-t, and “naïve” is not NAY-v.
replyBecause written English makes so much sense normally. God forbid someone has to figure out the ambiguous pronunciation of those particular words. It seems like a silly thing to provide extra guidance on to me.
replyI suspect the diaresis was intentional, in “New Yorker” style.
replyhttps://www.arrantpedantry.com/2020/03/24/umlauts-diaereses-...