Is it perché or perchè in Italian?

Perché, with an acute accent. Italian marks a closed e with é and an open one with è, and the -ché endings are closed, so it's perché and poiché. The grave accent belongs to open vowels like the one in the verb è. Perchè is a common typo because Italian keyboards put è on the unshifted key and é behind Shift.

Why does my C# app read è as Ã¨?

Somewhere the code reads the file with Encoding.Default, which in .NET Framework means the Windows ANSI code page, usually 1252, so a UTF-8 è splits into Ã and ¨. Pass Encoding.UTF8 instead, as in `File.ReadAllText(path, Encoding.UTF8)`. In .NET Core and .NET 5 or later, Encoding.Default is already UTF-8, which is why the same code works after a migration.

Why is it je lève but nous levons?

French writes è when the next syllable holds a silent e. In je lève the ending is mute, so the stem vowel opens and takes the grave accent; in nous levons the ending is pronounced and the stem goes back to a plain e. Verbs with é in the stem work the same way: céder gives je cède but nous cédons.

Is the empty set symbol Φ, Ø or ∅?

It's ∅ (U+2205). Φ is the Greek capital phi and Ø the Scandinavian letter, and both stand in for the empty set because they look close and were easier to type, but search and math software treat them as different symbols. Engineering drawings add the diameter sign ⌀ (U+2300), which also gets replaced by Φ or Ø.

ASCII 232

Lowercase e with grave accentGreek capital phi

ASCII 232 is è on Windows and Φ in old DOS.

è (Small E with Grave) is byte 232 in Windows-1252, Unicode U+00E8. Italian writes è (is), caffè and tè with it, and French uses it for the open e in règle and fièvre. It matters for SMS length. The GSM 7-bit alphabet that ordinary text messages use includes è, so an Italian message full of them still fits in 160 characters. Add one character outside that alphabet, such as ê or á, and the whole message switches to UCS-2, where a segment holds only 70 characters. SMS APIs bill per segment, so a single accent can multiply the cost. Old DOS had è at 138. The UTF-8 bytes C3 A8 misread as Ã¨. The HTML entity is è.

Φ (Capital Phi) is byte 232 in code page 437, the original IBM PC character set, and maps to Unicode U+03A6. In statistics Φ(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, so Φ(1.96) ≈ 0.975, the value behind 95% confidence intervals. Python computes it without extra packages: statistics.NormalDist().cdf(1.96). Physics uses the same letter for magnetic flux. Code page 850 put the Icelandic Þ on this byte. In UTF-8, Φ is CE A6, and the HTML entity is Φ.

Latin LetterGreek Letter

Technical Details

Code Example

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#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 232 is è.
       Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */
    printf("\u00E8\n");   /* UTF-8: C3 A8 */

    unsigned char b = 232;         /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */
    printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b);    /* 232 0xE8 */
    return 0;
}

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* Byte 232 is Φ only on a console using code page 437
       (chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the
       lone byte 0xE8 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */
    putchar(232);

    /* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xE8 is -24.
       Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */
    char c = (char)232;
    unsigned char u = 232;
    printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u);   /* -24 232 */

    /* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */
    printf("\u03A6\n");          /* CE A6 */
    return 0;
}

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 0232 on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The leading zero picks the Windows code page. Alt+138, without the zero, types it too. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 00E8 and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Option+`, then e.
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type e8, then Space. With a Compose key set up, press Compose, backtick, e.
Phone: Long-press e and pick è.

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 232 on the numeric keypad, with no leading zero. US PCs insert Φ, but PCs set to code page 850, common in Western Europe, insert Þ. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 03A6 and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer, then search for "greek capital letter phi".
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 3a6, then Space.
Phone: Add the Greek keyboard in your phone's keyboard settings and type Φ there, or tap the character at the top of this page to copy it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Perché, with an acute accent. Italian marks a closed e with é and an open one with è, and the -ché endings are closed, so it's perché and poiché. The grave accent belongs to open vowels like the one in the verb è. Perchè is a common typo because Italian keyboards put è on the unshifted key and é behind Shift.
Somewhere the code reads the file with Encoding.Default, which in .NET Framework means the Windows ANSI code page, usually 1252, so a UTF-8 è splits into Ã and ¨. Pass Encoding.UTF8 instead, as in `File.ReadAllText(path, Encoding.UTF8)`. In .NET Core and .NET 5 or later, Encoding.Default is already UTF-8, which is why the same code works after a migration.
French writes è when the next syllable holds a silent e. In je lève the ending is mute, so the stem vowel opens and takes the grave accent; in nous levons the ending is pronounced and the stem goes back to a plain e. Verbs with é in the stem work the same way: céder gives je cède but nous cédons.

Frequently Asked Questions

It's ∅ (U+2205). Φ is the Greek capital phi and Ø the Scandinavian letter, and both stand in for the empty set because they look close and were easier to type, but search and math software treat them as different symbols. Engineering drawings add the diameter sign ⌀ (U+2300), which also gets replaced by Φ or Ø.

ASCII 232

Lowercase e with grave accentGreek capital phi

ASCII 232 is è on Windows and Φ in old DOS.

Latin Letter

Greek Letter

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 232 is è.

Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */

printf("\u00E8\n"); /* UTF-8: C3 A8 */

unsigned char b = 232; /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */

printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b); /* 232 0xE8 */

return 0;

}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* Byte 232 is Φ only on a console using code page 437

(chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the

lone byte 0xE8 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */

putchar(232);

/* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xE8 is -24.

Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */

char c = (char)232;

unsigned char u = 232;

printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u); /* -24 232 */

/* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */

printf("\u03A6\n"); /* CE A6 */

return 0;

}