Subject: [idn] eszet (ss, sz, ß, call it whatever you want)

From: Codogno Maurizio <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 16:01:23 +0200

AFAIK, in German there are some specific cases in which you have
to use ß instead of ss. Needless to say, it was not the same throughout
Germandom: in Switzerland, the character is not used. The writing 
reform happened some years ago changed again things, reducing the number
of cases in which ß has to be used. Moreover, there is no uppercase 
form: you have to write SS. In short, a mess :-)

> I assume Germans use it to write German words. Not
> to replace double s in non-German names.

Yes, but we could have a mixed-language domain name: what about
paß-per-tutti.it ?

ciao, .mau.

---

From: "Georg Ochsner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 17:07:48 +0200

> form: you have to write SS. In short, a mess :-)

"SS" is not always the case, sometimes "SZ" is used instead.

"ss" (or "sz", "SS", "SZ") is not necessarily meaning the same as "ß" (sharp
s) (also after the "writing reform")
e.g.:

"Masse" means: mass, majority
"Maße" means: metrics, gauges

"Ass" means ace
"aß" means ate (pastens of "to eat")
...

In many words the "ß" (sharp s) is the only right spelling in Germany and
Austria (about 90 million people). In Switzerland and Liechtenstein (4,5
million German speaking people) there is AFAIK no "ß" (sharp s), maybe in
names. German is the most spoken mother tongue in the European Union.

I think the reason, why there is no uppercase "ß" (sharp s) is because there
are no words beginning with it - so uppercase is grammatically not
necessary.

> > to replace double s in non-German names.
correct

I guess a great majority of the people uses lowercase spelling to enter URLs
into its browsers...

Georg