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> Also, not all code points have a single-codepoint uppercase version. The eszett (ß) capitalizes to “SS”. There’s also the “capital” eszett ẞ, but its usage se

> Also, not all code points have a single-codepoint uppercase version. The eszett (ß) capitalizes to “SS”. There’s also the “capital” eszett ẞ, but its usage seems to vary and I’m not exactly sure how it interacts here. Don't use capital ß. While it may be found in a few places on the Web in posts of enthusiasts, it's not used in real life. (While it's based on an old proposal, it has been introduced only recently and it's supported only by recent OSes. At the same time – or rather, even before this –, orthographic reforms have replaced the lower-case variant by "ss" for most use cases. So it's anachronistically lost in retro-futurism, but bare of any retro-futurism charms.) Fun fact: "eszett" is a denomination specific to Germany, in Austria it's "scharfes s" ("sharp s", or rather, acute s), and the Swiss got rid of it altogether in the first half of the 20th century (1938), generally replacing it by "ss".

dfawcus 4y ago
> At the same time – or rather, even before this –, orthographic reforms have replaced the lower-case variant by "ss" for most use cases. Interesting. So maybe Germans will eventually experience a similar double take as I do when reading older (English) texts which used the 'long s', though that may well take a similar ~ 150 yrs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_S
- masswerk 4y ago
  I guess so, the tendency is towards abolishing the "ß" altogether, the current state of affairs is merely a compromise, which may be rather temporary. Regarding the "long s", this has been in use in German writing until the early 20th century, as well. One of the best things about "ß" is that there is no consensus what this actually is. Historically, it's a ligature, probably of a long s and a round s, and it can be found in renaissance Italian cursive (e.g., in samples by Palatino). Also, in 17th century type setting, it can be seen as a compositum of long and round s. This also explains, why there is only a lower-case form, as there is also (mostly) only a lower-case long s. So "eszett" or "ß" are probably historically wrong and it was only in Fraktur (non-Latin broken letter type) that "ß" became split into "s" and "z", and ever since, there is this ambiguity. Both "SZ" and "SS" are viable capitalizations, with the former being more authoritative in the mid-20th century and a strong tendency towards the latter (which is about the only form used nowadays). (Does the ambiguity matter? Not at all. Mind that probably only a minority knows that the ampersand (&) is a ligature of "et", or that "@" is literarily "at" and that you can write "it" the same way. We're perfectly able to use these things without knowing what they are.) Regarding letter forms, there are plenty sources of worry in German writing: There's Fraktur in books, mostly from the 18th century until 1940 (contrary to common belief, Fraktur was not the preferred typeface of Nazi-Germany, rather they abolished it), there's Schwabacher typeface, which was Latin characters, but still with broken forms, there had been long hand and short hand Kurent cursive, various national forms and epochs of Latin hand writing, even after WW II, etc. Fun!

dfawcus 4y ago

> At the same time – or rather, even before this –, orthographic reforms have replaced the lower-case variant by "ss" for most use cases. Interesting. So maybe Germans will eventually experience a similar double take as I do when reading older (English) texts which used the 'long s', though that may well take a similar ~ 150 yrs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_S https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_S

masswerk 4y ago
I guess so, the tendency is towards abolishing the "ß" altogether, the current state of affairs is merely a compromise, which may be rather temporary. Regarding the "long s", this has been in use in German writing until the early 20th century, as well. One of the best things about "ß" is that there is no consensus what this actually is. Historically, it's a ligature, probably of a long s and a round s, and it can be found in renaissance Italian cursive (e.g., in samples by Palatino). Also, in 17th century type setting, it can be seen as a compositum of long and round s. This also explains, why there is only a lower-case form, as there is also (mostly) only a lower-case long s. So "eszett" or "ß" are probably historically wrong and it was only in Fraktur (non-Latin broken letter type) that "ß" became split into "s" and "z", and ever since, there is this ambiguity. Both "SZ" and "SS" are viable capitalizations, with the former being more authoritative in the mid-20th century and a strong tendency towards the latter (which is about the only form used nowadays). (Does the ambiguity matter? Not at all. Mind that probably only a minority knows that the ampersand (&) is a ligature of "et", or that "@" is literarily "at" and that you can write "it" the same way. We're perfectly able to use these things without knowing what they are.) Regarding letter forms, there are plenty sources of worry in German writing: There's Fraktur in books, mostly from the 18th century until 1940 (contrary to common belief, Fraktur was not the preferred typeface of Nazi-Germany, rather they abolished it), there's Schwabacher typeface, which was Latin characters, but still with broken forms, there had been long hand and short hand Kurent cursive, various national forms and epochs of Latin hand writing, even after WW II, etc. Fun!