Kategorie: English

Some ten years ago, a group of silly professors from the German-speaking world (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) agreed on a new way to spell German. This was not universally adopted, of course, since the Swiss would never dream of using the letter „ß“ – it reminds them of Nazi Germany.

However, apart from these minor difficulties, German spelling was totally changed. This happened in a top-down process, of course, as is typical for Germany. There are many minor and a few major changes to the way the German language is spelled, but the most important one is this: the letter „ß“, also called „Ess-Zett“ or „Dreierles-Ess“ was all but removed from the German-speaking world. Only in very rare cases is it still seen in Germany these days, e.g. when signing letters „Mit freundlichen Grüßen“.

There was one leading German newspaper, the „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ (F.A.Z.) who refused to comply. So for some years, they stuck to the „old“ way of spelling. However, this is now over. The F.A.Z., like almost everybody else in Germany, changed the way they spell when writing.

For school children, it became compulsory to use this new spelling order. School books had to be re-printed accordingly.

However, in private life, nobody can force changes upon you. Everybody in Germany, and Austria, and possibly Switzerland above the age of 20 still learned the old way of spelling, the author of these lines being one of those people. Therefore, I don’t see any reason at all to change. Just like the F.A.Z. argued, I take the liberty to spell the way I am used to. „Ich glaube, daß ich das Recht dazu habe“.

However, I wonder why my personal opinion on this topic seems to be so very rare in Germany. Why did everyone decide to forget what they learned in school, and follow the line of that bunch of old professors, instead?