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Comment by ofrzeta | Hacker News Reader

As someone who worked as a professional writer for many years I never understood why that reform was so inconsistent. After all it was supposed to simplify spelling. So why not go all the way and eradicate the 'ß' like they did in Switzerland. And this is just one of many examples.

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The standard argument is that some words with different meanings (and pronunciations!) can only be distinguished by ss/ß in writing, e.g. "Masse" (mass) vs. "Maße" (measures). The first one has a short "a" sound, the second one has a long "a" sound.

How is it inconsistent? S, ss and ß all have distinct pronunciations.

In Standard German ss and ß don't have distinct pronunciations.

That was one of the goals of the spelling reform to make the use of ß more consistent and use simpler rules for it. Exactly because there is no difference in pronounciation between ss and ß.

You’re right, they are pronounced the same. What I was actually thinking about was the different pronunciations of the vowel before the ss/ß. In the word “Schoß” for example the ß tells you the the vowel is long and not short as it would be in the word “schoss”.

So what I’m trying to say is that s/ss/ß have distinct use cases which follow consistent rules.

This here to emphasise parent

The vowel preceding ß is pronounced long, the vowel preceding ss is pronounced short (with exceptions, of course).

> So why not go all the way and eradicate the 'ß' like they did in Switzerland.

Cultural identity and pride in one's lingual heritage play a part too. As a Dutchman, I like the German ß. Nothing conveys the notion of a foreign country better than another language and a differing orthography.

The ß even has a proper capital these days: ẞ. While no word ever begins with ẞ, you do need it when capitalising a whole word — e.g., on a sign.

>The ß even has a proper capital these days: ẞ

Really? I need to fix all my regular expressions..

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