"ess-tset"
Ulrich Fieseler
Hello, all!
There has been some discussion concerning the German special letter
"ess-tset", so I've decided to post some information I have (answering
several questions which were asked in two other threads, namely the
"Re: Accents (was Re: Re(2): Re(2): Type display" thread and the
"Re: Accented Characters" thread, and using some of the information
given there).
Maybe this is a good starting point for a paragraph in the FAQ!?
First of all, the name of the letter: it looks a little like a lower case
beta, PostScript fonts usually contain it under the name /germandbls,
and in Germany its name is pronounced as "ess-tset". The two-letter sequence
"sz" would also be pronounced that way, leading to misunderstandings.
In German, we would write the pronunciation as "ess-zet" (or maybe "es-zet"),
but this would sound different when spoken by English or American people.
Another common name for the letter is "scharfes s" ("sharp s").
From now on, I will use TeX notation for "ess-tset": {\ss}.
Double quotes will indicate an umlaut for the following letter from now on.
For the history of this letter, here's an abstract of the section
``Einzelheiten'', subsection ``"Uber Herkunft und Form des {\ss}''
(i.e. ``Details'', ``On origin and shape of the {\ss}'') from the book
Jan Tschichold:
Meisterbuch der Schrift
Otto Maier Verlag
Ravensburg, 1952
(pages 42,44,45; there's an illustration for the previous section on
page 43).
[Sorry for not giving a translation of the whole paragraph, Tschichold's
work deserves a well-educated translator (i.e. not me), besides I lack
time to prepare it.]
According to Tschichold, the ligature {\ss} is a character only used in
German orthography. It was available in old French and English italic fonts
but is no longer used since the long s [Tschichold used a long-s here!]
has been abolished (i.e. since mid-18th century).
In German orthography, the {\ss} is indispensable, and everyone should fight
against its removal which has been carried out in Swiss school-writing.
In italics, {\ss} is still obviously a contraction of long s
[again: T. uses a long-s] and final-s:
__ ___
/ / /
/ _ / _/
/ + | = / |
/ _| / _|
__/ __/
[Sorry for the ASCII... I hope you get the idea.]
Old Antiqua fonts did not contain an {\ss} because it was unusual to
typeset German in Antiqua till the end of 1800, and after that it was only
seldomly usual. In Fraktur, {\ss} [in Fraktur!] did exist for a long time.
If German was typeset using Antiqua, when long-s was still in use, long-s s
was used, later ss. Since the middle of the previous century, with growing
use of Antiqua for German texts, the desire for an Antiqua-{\ss} has become
obvious, and in analogy to the Fraktur-{\ss} several deformities
[`Mi{\ss}bildungen', anyone with a better translation?] were designed,
some of which are in common use today
[a list of 18 {\ss} examples follows, chosen at random.]
This started from the opinion that {\ss} [in Fraktur!] (spoken e{\ss}zett
[that's exactly the way Tschichold puts it, to get the sound, use
transcription above]) was a union of long-s and z. But this is only due
to the incorrect label ``E{\ss}-Zett'' [again: quoted from T.'s book].
The correct term would be ``scharfes s'' [sharp s].
[Correct, OK, but ``ess-tsett'' is still used _by far_ more often!]
The {\ss} of the Schwabacher and of the Fraktur font are, as the correct
{\ss} in italics [{\ss} is typeset in italics here!], a letter-union, but
not between long-s and z [both in Fraktur], but between long-s and s
[both in Fraktur]. If you imagine them moved into one another, only the
right half of the s, which is similar to a z, remains [s and z in Fraktur].
Throughout the centuries, it was forgotten that this is not a z [Fraktur!],
and the incorrect label ``E{\ss}-Zett'' to the rule that {\ss} is to be
typeset as SZ when using small caps. According to Tschichold, this rule
is for good reasons rarely put into practice.
[Rules for German orthography are as given in the DUDEN, and today this rule
is relaxed to cases in which two similar words exist, one with {\ss} and
one with ss; in this case the former has to be written with `sz'.
Rules may change...]
In the following paragraphs, Tschichold gives several examples of good
{\ss}-designs. He would even prefer the pair of long-s and s to some
`strange' designs. In this context, he recommends the use of long-s in
some instances, as long as an Older Antiqua
[he uses ``"Altere Antiqua'' with an upper case "A, so this _must_ be a name!]
is used, but he mentions Bodoni as an example of a classicist font
[translation?] in which long-s looks strange, or even funny or unreadable
in bold Bodoni.
[End of abstract of Tschichold's explanations]
And now some more disgusting ASCII examples:
___ ___
// \\ // \\
// \\ // \\
|| ||
|| ||
|| ||
-|| ====== -||=====
|| // / || /
|| || /\ || /\
|| + || /|| = || /||
|| || / || || / ||
|| ||/ / ||/ /
|| || / || /
|| ===/ ||=/
|| ||
| |
^^ ^^
Imagine this as long-s and s in Fraktur (double lines are meant to indicate
bold lines), then make the columns indicated by ^^ overlap, and that's it!
For Antiqua, this would be
_____ _____
// \\ // \\
// \\ // \\
|| || //
|| || //
|| || //
|| //===\\ || //
|| || || ||
|| || || ||
|| + \\___ = || \\___
|| \\ || \\
|| || || ||
|| || || ||
_||_ \\===// _||_ \\===//
Remove the upper stroke of the s and join it with the end of the long-s, and
here we go!
For a sans serif font, Tschichold's example is a bit more tricky: the upper
stroke of the s is not removed, the long-s spans like a bridge above the s
and the upper right ends of both are joined, forming a right angle
(90 degrees).
I hope this clarifies all the rumour about {\ss} being a ligature between
long-s and z! (I could try to draw an ASCII-Fraktur-z now, but I'm getting
a litle tired now, so I won't.)
Thanks for listening,
Ulrich
Richard Hunt
> Hello, all!
>
> There has been some discussion concerning the German special letter
> "ess-tset", so I've decided to post some information I have (answering
> several questions which were asked in two other threads, namely the
> "Re: Accents (was Re: Re(2): Re(2): Type display" thread and the
> "Re: Accented Characters" thread, and using some of the information
> given there).
[explanation deleted]
Thank you very much for the time and trouble taken to prepare your very
informative posting.
Richard Hunt
rh...@cix.compulink.co.uk