amazing! but unfortunately I don't speak german, what is the translation?

"The assassination of the aunt of the potentate of the Hottentots" - not a word one would use every day!

a last one for you, an easy one, for me, for a further message here (I need help!) how would you translate "produits d'hygiène" (ie showergel, toothpaste...) I don't think it is "cosmetics". products you can find in a hotel bathroom. do I make myself clear? I can't find it in my Robert and Collins dictionary! :-(

thank you and good night it's midnight in dijon.

I think we would say "personal hygiene products" or "personal care products" or "grooming products."

Bonne nuit!

jahoulih thank you so much! (grooming is not for horses?)
if you ever come to dijon, I'll have the pleasure to take you for a walk in my lovely town!
and for the others members here, sorry for the disturbance! :-)
corinne

I've just remembered the mot juste: toiletries.

Bonjour cocofromdijon,

Tu peux taper les accents quand tu utilises un clavier américain, mais il faut savoir les trouver. ç è é ê â etc. et même € œ æ [ə] (le schwa) et les guillemets « ! ».

Je suis américain mais j'habite en France depuis deux ans. I've been studying French for over 40 years now.

hello jahoulih and ckenb and thank you for the details.
ckenb I understand better you high level in French now ;-) I wish I were as good..
I am going to post a new message and please correct me if there are any mistakes!
have a nice day! :-)
corinne

I have never seen schwa on any list of special characters before - - how did you do that?

I used Charmap in Windows, copied the character and pasted it in. Arial font. Charmap says it's Cyrillic Small Letter Schwa. I don't think their are keystrokes for it on a U.S. keyboard.

On my screen your schwa doesn't show up as a schwa. (I see it as a rectangle.) Does it appear as a schwa (upside down lower case "e") on your monitor? That's odd.

Actually it appears on my scrreen as a ractangle in brackets, to be precise. Do you really see the schwa on your screeen?

rectangle (no "a")

I do see the shwa (which I put in brackets) on my screen. As someone else warned, Charmap characters might now show up on every display. Are you using Windows or Mac?

I couldn't see it at home, but can see it at work. Thst's odd. Using a PC, Windows (98 at home, 2000 at work), Internet Explorer both places

Curious if I can cut and paste it from your post...

ə

Looks like it - - at least in preview... and this is fascinating - - wen I cam back from "preview my reply" - - it now shows in the box as

ə (I used & to represent the ampersand in this line) - - and typing that combination of characters produces...

ə

... the same thing! Very interesting! How much more of the international phoneti alphabet could we represent here?

Curious if it can be bolded also...

<b>ə</b>

Yes! or according to preview at least... Fascinating (well, not exactly like cosmology, but...)

On a Mac, you can see the schwa if in Special Characters under IPA extensions of the Unicode list. But let's see if it appears on this screen: ?. I have my doubts since the preview gives it as a question mark.

Two other tries:

? from the Character Palette, Unicode, Cyrillic

? from the Character Palette, Unicode, Latin Extended-B

Oh, now that's funny! Using preview converted &amp;#601; to ə even though I used &amp;amp; for the ampersand!