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Comment by aeve890 | Hacker News Reader

Come on now. I would swear both characters are the same. I didn't know that the German one wasn't a Greek beta.

The little tail is the distinction

It's not, actually. The actual difference is that beta is a form of B, while Eszett is two letters s (a long one and a short one) joined together and drawn with a single stroke. Alternatively, a letter s and a letter z (hence the name Eszett).

You gave the history of it

But the context of the question is how a system like a human can make a visual distinction quickly via a characteristic

The characteristic I gave was the little tail which is independent of knowing the derivative of how it got its tail

Right? Without knowing (I don't speak German) one can asume that the tail it's just a typographic feature.

But it is. You can draw a beta without a tail or an Eszett with a tail.

The plot thickens

Well, the thing is, the tail is entirely optional in both cases. The tell is the joint between two parts of the Eszett. Whether a curve or a corner, it looks very different from the corner/loop of the beta.

Or, if you put it differently: beta, being a "B", has two loops of almost the same size, the top and the bottom, almost complete (about ¾ of a circle). Eszett, on the other hand, is more like a bendy road, with no circle-like parts. The top bit is a U-turn leading to a wiggle that is not circular at all, potentially with a sharp corner (the remainder of the "z"). A long tail on the left side is still possible, since the long S had it.

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