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In the spelling of the surname of the Brontë sisters, the pair of dots over the last letter is called a diaeresis. Note that it should be over the letter e, not the letter o – an error for which whoever was responsible for typing the answers on today’s edition of “The Chase” on ITV ought to be ashamed of themselves!
A diaeresis is used to indicate that a vowel that looks as if it should be silent in the spelling of a word should be pronounced. It looks the same as the German Umlaut – but the latter has a different function, being used over the letters a, o or u (but not e or i) to alter the quality of the vowel sound.
