accents on fue and fui

Question

I have a couple of older books that were published in 1944 and 1951 and accents were used on fue and fui in these books. I'm just wondering if a mistake was made or if the use of accents was optional on these words at that time?

Answer 1

Good question swampy! Look what I found: http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/150953/old-rules-for-accent-marks-c-1909/wordoftheday/blog/blog/feed

(It wasn't easy to find, so this isn't the typical "you should have used teh search button!" answer hee hee )

• I always instinctively felt that "fe" should have an accent! I must have been a peruvian nun in my last life. - rabbitwho Dec 18, 2011
• Thanks rabbitwho great answer! I used the search button but didn't dig deep enough. - swampy Dec 18, 2011
• I used Google, the SD search function misses things sometimes. - rabbitwho Dec 18, 2011

Answer 2

I think there was an extensive revision in 1994 that eliminated a number of accents. I suspect someone other than I could give better detail. I have books filled with "vió".

Per Wikipedia: link text

In 1994, the RAE ruled that the Spanish consonants "CH" (ché) and "LL" (elle) would hence be alphabetized under "C" and under "L", respectively, and not as separate, discrete letters, as in the past. The RAE eliminated monosyllabic accented vowels where the accent did not serve in changing the word's meaning, examples include: "dio" ("gave"), "vio" ("saw"), both had an acutely-accented vowel "ó"; yet the monosyllabic word "sé" ("I know", the first person, singular, present of "saber", "to know"; and the singular imperative of "ser", "to be") retains its acutely-accented vowel in order to differentiate it from the reflexive pronoun "se".

• I think this was a different revision, they eliminate a few accents every few years it seems. - rabbitwho Dec 18, 2011
• Thanks Stadt! - swampy Dec 18, 2011
• @rabbitwho- you are probably right. I don't try to track which revision did what. :-) - Stadt Dec 18, 2011

Answer 3

Good question, this was changed some time ago and now the rule for monosyllables prevails.

No monosyllable has an accent unless the meaning changes, like, se vs sé.

• Stadt already answered, well anyway, jeje - Heidita Dec 18, 2011
• Thanks Heidita! - swampy Dec 18, 2011

Answer 4

I will just add that solo should not have an accent either unless it can be confused. And that happens so seldom that is is safer not to use it, and easier

• I thought we had a choice if or if not to use it in any situation except where it could be confused? - rabbitwho Dec 18, 2011