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DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantJano
veggie4life
Registered: March 14, 2007
Posts: 16
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This is a problem which occurs only in German, but maybe it could be applied to special characters of other languages, too.

In German, there is the letter "ß" for a "ss" sound following a long vowel. It's "Fluss" (German for "River", the "u" is short and pronounced kind of like the oo in "good"), but "Fuß" (German for "Foot", the "u" is long and pronounced like the vowel sound in "shoes").

The problem for the titles is that "ß" is a lower case letter only. When majuscules are used, it has to be substituted by "ss", a capital "ß" simply doesn't exist.
The cover for e.g. "Great Expectations" therefore says "GROSSE ERWARTUNGEN".



However, when the title isn't written in majuscules but in regular writing - like in the DVD title field of the profiles (or on this cover) - it's simply not correct, according to German spelling rules, to use the "ss" substitution.
Nevertheless, some people insist on putting the "ss" there, referring to the "exactly written as on cover" rule, saying "profiler rules overrule the spelling rule".
But is it really intended that way? According to the rules, the capitalization of words should follow the spelling rules of the particular language. So, why shouldn't that be applied to the capitalization of the letters themselves, too?

And, using the example above again, it's just stupid to say "ss because it's exactly as on the cover". Following that assumption, it would have to be "GROSSE ERWARTUNGeN".

What do you mean?
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorNadja
Small and broken
Registered: March 13, 2007
United Kingdom Posts: 775
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The rules read that the user should "Use the title from the film's credits." Seems to me that as long as it's the "ß" that appears onscreen, that belongs in the title field.
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantJano
veggie4life
Registered: March 14, 2007
Posts: 16
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Yeah, but Credits are most of the time in majuscule writing, too. If we take the title from the credits, the capitalization has to be changed to follow the spelling rules (otherwise it would be, as I said, GROSSE ERWARTUNGeN). If we don't change the "SS" to "ß" there, but make a "ss" out of it, it doesn't follow the spelling/capitalization rules.

And, for German editions, another problem with this would be that the title doesn't appear in the credits at all. We usually see the original title in the credits because of international DVD masters.
 Last edited: by Jano
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorSquirrelecto
Registered: March 13, 2007
United Kingdom Posts: 793
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The rules tell us not to follow the capitalization of the cover, but to follow the capitalization conventions of the locality. So you would put "Große Erwartungen" in the Title field and in the Original Title field you would put "Great Expectations".
 Last edited: by Squirrelecto
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorNadja
Small and broken
Registered: March 13, 2007
United Kingdom Posts: 775
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I would imagine it would be sensible to capitalise as "Grosse Erwartungen", but I'm just not sure on "ß vs ss". If it's not displayed onscreen with the "ß", then I'd be inclined to write it as given on the cover, bad as it may be. It wouldn't be the first time a distributor abuses language on a cover.  My own pet peeve is "Footballers Wives". It's either that or "Footballer's Wives", never "Footballers' Wives" as would be correct. 
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorSquirrelecto
Registered: March 13, 2007
United Kingdom Posts: 793
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Quoting Nadja:
Quote:
I would imagine it would be sensible to capitalise as "Grosse Erwartungen", but I'm just not sure on "ß vs ss". If it's not displayed onscreen with the "ß", then I'd be inclined to write it as given on the cover, bad as it may be. It wouldn't be the first time a distributor abuses language on a cover.  My own pet peeve is "Footballers Wives". It's either that or "Footballer's Wives", never "Footballers' Wives" as would be correct. 

The distributor is using the language correctly though. It's correct to write 'SS' when the entire word is in capitals. Since "Grosse" just wouldn't be written in German using lower case capitalization, it has to be written as "Große". At least this is how I understand it from what Jano is saying. I haven't studied German since school!
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantJano
veggie4life
Registered: March 14, 2007
Posts: 16
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Thanks, Squirrel, that's what I was going for.

Nadja, it's not a spelling mistake by the distributor. As I said - when using the majuscule (all capital) writing which is often used for titles, it has to be "ss", as the "ß" doesn't exist as a capital letter.

But when we change back the title to standard upper and lower case capitalization, the substituting "ss" has to become "ß" again. (it's GROSSE, but Große)

I know, the whole "ss" / "ß" thingy is quite confusing for people who aren't German native speakers. 
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile RegistrantStar ContributorNadja
Small and broken
Registered: March 13, 2007
United Kingdom Posts: 775
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Ah, I see. I haven't studied German since school either.

I'm still pissed about Footballers Wives though!
DVD Profiler Unlimited Registrantnuoyaxin
prev. known as ya_shin
Registered: March 13, 2007
Reputation: High Rating
Taiwan, Province of China Posts: 3,436
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I haven't studied German since school either; I do speak it on a daily basis though

Joking aside, I think Squirrel.God's reverse engineering is a great point and should earn Yes votes when put in the Contribution Notes.
Achim [諾亞信; Ya-Shin//Nuo], a German in Taiwan.
Registered: May 29, 2000 (at InterVocative)
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar ContributorRHo
Registered: March 13, 2007
Posts: 2,759
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Quoting jano:
Quote:
However, when the title isn't written in majuscules but in regular writing - like in the DVD title field of the profiles (or on this cover) - it's simply not correct, according to German spelling rules, to use the "ss" substitution.
Nevertheless, some people insist on putting the "ss" there, referring to the "exactly written as on cover" rule, saying "profiler rules overrule the spelling rule".

It is correct according Swiss spelling rules.
Just kidding, your proposal is fine. For titles we use standard language rules for capitalisation, which do IMO also cover this conversion "SS" to "ß" the same way it covers "E" to "é" or "C" to "ç" when needed.
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantBeverlyHillsFan
Registered: March 14, 2007
Germany Posts: 7
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Quoting Nadja:
Quote:
The rules read that the user should "Use the title from the film's credits." Seems to me that as long as it's the "ß" that appears onscreen, that belongs in the title field.

Unfortunately, this rule doesn't help much. It is quite common for german DVD-releases to take an international master. So, in all likelihood, the film's credit say Great Expectations instead of Große Erwartungen.
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorbob9000
safety word?
Registered: March 13, 2007
Canada Posts: 844
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You crazy Germans.  I recently discovered that sometimes for a lower case 'S' you have a symbol that looks just like an 'f' without the crossbar.

"Ro?en, ?o i?t recht!" for example.

I am not what I would call fluent, but I need to know how to pronounce what I read...and I just can't help saying: "Roffen, foe ift..." when I read that.   

It has taken weeks to work it out and I will be well pleased to be working on something that uses the standard 's' again.   

EDIT:      The forum can't even display the character. I am glad its not just me. 
 Last edited: by bob9000
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantJano
veggie4life
Registered: March 14, 2007
Posts: 16
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You mean something like this?



Well, that's Fraktur (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraktur_%28typeface_sub-classification%29), a very old typeface from the beginning of printing presses time.

This typeface is not really in regular use anymore (no, we don't have this capital S which looks like a G everywhere around us  ).
The youth probably can't read it at all. However, some ultra conservative newspaper still use it for some of their headlines. And last century, it was a big hit with the Nazis because of the "embodiment of the ancestral German virtues" etc. blah blah crap.

But you're back on topic without even knowing it.
The "ß" is a relic of the old days. In Fraktur typeset, it's the long lower case "s" combined with a lower case "z", representing an "sz" sound.

DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantStar Contributorbob9000
safety word?
Registered: March 13, 2007
Canada Posts: 844
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Quoting jano:
Quote:
You mean something like this?



Well it was a standard Times New Roman looking font, but that is the badboy character of which I was venting.    Tell me it doesn't look like an 'f'. The character map in windows refers to it as a "latin long 's'"...

I refer to it as a pain in my buttocks. 

as for your issue it is a tough call. I have seen more and more use of the double 'ss' even in lower case in librettos and such. I kinda like the ß, but it seems to be falling out of favour. At least in the opinion of this non-german speaker living an ocean away.
 Last edited: by bob9000
DVD Profiler Desktop and Mobile Registrantlmoelleb
Beer Profiler now!
Registered: March 14, 2007
Denmark Posts: 630
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Unfortunately the people writing the rules where not aware that any conversion between upper case and lower case is based on a cultural interpretation (as they clearly demonstrated in a discussion on the old forum). For example using an English interpretation, the I gets a dot added when converted to lowercase while it doesn't in Turkish. In French accents are lost when going from lower to upper case. In Danish, it is optional to use capital letter at the start of each "major" world in the title, or only the first word (unless the word itself should use uppercase, for example if it is a name). The list goes on and on and on.

It is hence 100% impossible to convert to lowercase without applying the rules of a specific language (and even then there might me several versions).

So basically thereare two options:
1) Convert SS to ß according to German interpretation (where it makes sense obviously)
2) Convert SS to ss according to English interpretation (and other languages).

The rules do NOT state which option is correct. I would hence consider both to be according to the rule, and would simply correct my local version according to prefereces and lock it to avoid ping pong.
Regards
Lars
DVD Profiler Unlimited RegistrantJano
veggie4life
Registered: March 14, 2007
Posts: 16
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Quoting bob9000:
Quote:

Well it was a standard Times New Roman looking font, but that is the badboy character of which I was venting.    Tell me it doesn't look like an 'f'. The character map in windows refers to it as a "latin long 's'"...

I refer to it as a pain in my buttocks. 

as for your issue it is a tough call. I have seen more and more use of the double 'ss' even in lower case in librettos and such. I kinda like the ß, but it seems to be falling out of favour. At least in the opinion of this non-german speaker living an ocean away.



Yeah, sure. By introducing the new official German spelling rules in 1996, the use of "ß" has been discontinued for words in which the preceding sound is short.
e.g. "du hasst" (you hate) instead of "du haßt". But if it follows a long vowel or diphthong, it's still "ß" - "ich saß" (I sat), "du weißt" (you know).
 Last edited: by Jano
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