[tdk]

I'm well aware it's a diaeresis, and that it's part of their house style. That's exactly what I'm objecting to. The diaeresis is obsolete modern English (with rare exceptions) and putting it in interrupts the flow of reading. There is no excuse for it in 'cooperation', and only the only reason they do it is in order to show off they know about it - IOW pretension.

[stephancoral]

>There is no excuse for it in 'cooperation'

Yes, there is. A) it is a perfectly grammatically and orthographically correct usage of the di B) There is no prescriptive body which governs usage of American English - there's no need for an "excuse" to use an orthographic feature of the language as if it is some clause violated.

The reason they do it is because it's the New Yorker. It's their house style. It's what their readers expect and understand and it has become a tradition and perhaps even emblematic of the magazine and its brand. Complaining about the "pretentiousness" of the New Yorker is like complaining about the convoluted commands in eMacs or vim - it's not a problem, it's a feature.

[tdk]

Any deviation from the norms of English calls attention to itself, and distracts from the meaning. This can be done by great writers, but always with reason.

Good writing reveals something about the reader. Bad writing reveals something about the writer.

However since you now seem to agree that it's pretentious, which was my original point, I'll leave it there.