Re: sharp ß and ss in Ada keywords like ACCESS

[Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauhaus@futureapps.de>]

On 10.10.11 18:46, Adam Beneschan wrote:
> On Oct 10, 9:30 am, Georg Bauhaus <rm.dash-bauh...@futureapps.de>
> wrote:
>> The history of the USA harbors an interesting specimen of sharp-s,
>> its origin and meaning, as I learned just now.
>> It is not from a text written in German, though; rather, it is heading,
>> TA DA, the Bill of Rights:
>>
>> http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_zoom_1.html
> 
> It's clearly two separate letters there.  And my understanding was
> that the origins of the "sharp s" was that it was a combination of s
> and z (not of the longer and smaller forms of "s" that we see in the
> Bill of Rights).  When I took German in high school about 35 years
> ago, the character was called "ess-zed", suggesting that origin.  I
> think that's what my father (whose first language was German) called
> it too.  I never heard the term "sharp s" until the issue arose in ARG
> discussions.

To the best of my knowledge, the issue is not settled, and
likely will never be, because it stems from the early days
of writing at all. Several (seueral :-) dialects and pronunciations,
together with several conventions of how early writers represent
speech yield a matrix of possibilities. In addition, experts
distinguish ligature from abbreviation, which at first sight is
taken to be in favor of s+z, but see below for "z form" of s.
Many books from around 1900 do not have ß, but long-s and short-s;
this convention did not last long, though.

However, there is substantial evidence that no z would ever be
combined with an s such that the result is both forming an
"ess-zed" shape, and also meaning s+z, in a word that stems from Latin,
such as "process" ("Prozeß", now "Prozess"). Those words would
only be rendered using 26 characters of pure Latin type anyway,
without ß, and never turning the "ss" from Lating into "sz".
That is, finding "Prozesz" in print or writing anywhere
if highly unlikely.

Rather, some sources suggest a "z form" (shape) after long-s as a writing
convention that assigns to z the meaning of terminal-s; so z becomes
overloaded with s, and thus Congreſs was rendered Kongreß until
recently; it was always rendered KONGRESS in capital letters---KONGRESZ
can safely be ignored as an oddity, even though this exceptional
spelling if formally allowed (by the powers that be).
The "z form" would be in harmony with the combination of long-s short-s
in old style handwriting in German and some Scandinavian languages.
Whatever the origins of ß might be, *every* single rule that kids get
taught at school was, and is, about the ralation of ß and ss,
about sounds, and when to use them; "ess-zed" becomes just a name,
not itself implying "z", but reflecting the (former) looks of it. Speakers
of German wouldn't say [koŋgrests] just because "ts" is how z sounds
in German.

I'm interested in the subject because it is one of those undecidable
problems that, nevertheless, produce heated debates over language rules;
Scheme R6RS introduces case sensitivity in part because there is no
1:1 rule for turning "sss" or "ßs" into capital letters...
Which introduces more opportunities for deliberate obfuscation
(define (select MASSE MASZE MAßE) ...)

I'd think that the simplest of the rules is to make "ss" and "ß"
the same, and ask programmers to relax. This has worked in Switzerland
for many, many years.