Dear Spanish speakers, when you write, do you still use sólo / solo, or are you now following the new dispensation of the RAE that it should be solo in all cases?
I’m writing an article and I don’t want to look like an ignoramus if I use solo instead of sólo. But neither do I want to look like I’m not in touch with RAE’s innovations.
The more conservative option will appeal to people who don’t necessarily like RAE pronouncements. I don’t care about this, but I’m still miffed about the change in ch and ll ordering and this type of mandated change tends to never take effect immediately. Was just talking to some Portuguese speakers (Iberian) who said that the latest Portuguese academy pronouncements are enforced at their university but not so much elsewhere.
It might be a good idea to add a clarification note whatever option you decide on. It would not be optimal if you use the new form only for some editor to change it on you (and human nature being what it is they’ll blame you for making them look bad).
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“I’m still miffed about the change in ch and ll ordering”
– Me, too!! I’m still completely confused by it. RAE seems to have a deep need to justify its existence. Like the MLA with its silly little changes to the format.
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Noooo, they don’t want to eliminate tonical accents?
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Only in this one case.
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I’m not the best person to answer. Once I got a revise and resubmit from an article I had written in Spanish, and one of the things it said was: “You should proofread the article by a native Spanish speaker before resubmitting it” Ouch…
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Maybe it would be useless… http://lumengrafica.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/%C2%BFsolo-o-solo-nuevas-normas-de-ortografia/
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Did you meant to ask Spanish scholars? as a Spanish speaker I don’t care what RAE says. In formal writing I use both sólo/solo. But in most of my writing I can miss an accent here and there.
You’re surely aware that accents aren’t as important to us as they’re to the French or to the German language.
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I know that normal people don’t care about these innovations by RAE, but you never know who is a stickler for what in academic journals.
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I would write “solo”. I think that all of us are well aware of these little changes.
When I grade my student’s essays I do not correct “sólo/solo” anymore, but I still write “sólo” in my comments… just like 50yo and above native speaker still write “fué”.
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I use both sólo and solo. Someone told me that there is a movement to eliminate the use of accents in Spanish altogether. I enjoy accent marks. So I hope that this movement does not achieve it’s goal.
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I still use sólo for the adverb because that is what I first learned. It still doesn’t look wrong to me. If someone edited me and changed it to solo I wouldn’t care.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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