![]() ![]() The German Spelling Council was created in the resultant atmosphere of unrest to find compromise solutions and reinstate “linguistic peace” in the land. But debate also raged about whether to change the spelling of Fuß to Fuss. Most prominently, the word daß was changed to dass. An epochal spelling reform in 1996 severely curtailed the use of the letter, with new rules dictating that it should never appear after a short vowel. This is not the first time that the Eszett has caused civil unrest among German orthographers and writers. But this peculiarity was rarely noticed as the ß never appears at the start of a word. The Eszett only exists in German and was the only letter in the German language that previously had no capital version. But they’ll have to see through the red mist to find the combination of Alt Gr+Shift+ß before they can finish their tirade. So now at least those writing angry uppercase emails who get stuck at the "SCHEI" in "Scheiße" have their solution. In German passports, names appear in uppercase, meaning that until now, someone with the surname Großmann has had to put up with the humiliation of being confused with a Grossmann. The German Spelling Council defended the decision, saying that it is important for officialdom to be able to distinguish between a name spelled with a double s and one spelled with an ß. But conservatives refuse to accept it on aesthetic grounds, claiming that the new letter's unwieldy girth make it the SUV of the letter world. Now, instead of using SS to capitalize the Eszett, Germans should use ẞ.Īccording to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the progressives among German orthographers see the decision as a great leap forward. ![]() ![]() At the end of June, the German Spelling Council decided to add a capital ß (Eszett) to the language, bringing to an end a debate that had raged on in the world of German orthography since the 19th century. ![]()
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