Re: Uppercase ß is coming? (U+1E9E)

From: Frank Ellermann (nobody@xyzzy.claranet.de)
Date: Fri May 04 2007 - 07:20:44 CST

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    Andrew West wrote:
     
    > Well you obviously haven't taken a look at the front cover of Der
    > Große Duden (Leipzig, 1957, 1960, 1964) -- Figs.9 and 10 in
    > <http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/N3227.pdf>

    I did, and the number of "capital ß" presented in this memo is zero.
    If I'd write GROSZES@ESZETT.INVALID on a tombstone the "@" is still
    an "@" and not a "capital @".

    > Have you read the proposal ?

    Yes, it's irresponsible and harmful, misrepresenting an ordinary ß
    in various contexts of capital letters as a fictitious "capital ß".

    The interesting glyph on these pages is the old long-s z ligature,
    not the (roughly) long-s Z ligature used as "ß". Everybody is free
    to use a slighly larger version of lower case letters or a slightly
    smaller version of upper case letters for some nice visual effects,
    but that's no new character.

    > The character is being proposed in order to represent examples of
    > usage in existing texts

    The used character is a clear u+00DF, not something new.

    > there is a need to represent texts which use this uppercase form.

    That's not the case, and it would result in some "worldwide upgrade"
    madness, not limited to "permitting" ß in IDNAbis for domain labels
    after it suddenly got a fictitious "upper case" companion.

    > There is no suggestion of any change to existing orthographic
    > practice for German in the encoding of this character.

    Well, the person who has signed this proposal works for the German
    Home Office. I'll try to ask them why they wish to spend billions
    for the software upgrades required for this obscure dupe of "ß".

    > Lower case sharp s will continue to upper case to "SS", existing
    > implementations will be unaffected.

    Sure, existing implementations will have to be upgraded. As a kind
    of conspiracy trying to get rid of de-DE + de-AT in favour of de-CH
    it would be amusing.

    Frank



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