Re: Capital Sharp S in the News

From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Tue Jul 01 2008 - 01:11:09 CDT

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    At 20:02 -0700 2008-06-30, Mark Davis wrote:

    >It is *not* a matter of stability; it is a
    >matter of correctness. The correct outcome is
    >"SS".
    >
    >Mark

    That's a matter of opinion, of course.

    Since German orthographic reform has made <Maße>
    ['ma:s@] 'measures' distinct in spelling from
    <Masse> ['mas@] 'mass' it is easily arguable that
    abolishing this distinction in all caps as
    <MASSE> for both is an error, and that <MAßE>
    (with capital ß) is in fact "correct". That's a
    linguistic distinction, properly maintained in
    orthography with the new character.

    Werner Lemberg has already pointed to
    Strauß/Strauss as a personal-name distinction --
    certainly a matter of import for the
    identification of people...

    So I believe it is only a matter of time before
    "correctness" is made normative. (Could be a long
    time. Could be shorter.)

    -- 
    Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com
    


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