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Comment by Karellen | Hacker News Reader

You're right! It's a good job there are no words in English where one spelling encompasses many meanings, of which some could even be contradictory, which would have to be inferred from context. That would be so bad!

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There's no reason for sarcasm, especially not with such misplaced sarcasm. Nobody is arguing that the ß is required for the future of humanity, or that German is somehow different, or even superior, to English, and requires this letter to do its magic.

But for good or bad, it is part of the language. People used to it consider replacing it with 'ss' as ugly. Because of custom, and also because a double consonant almost always indicates a short vowel, whereas a single 's' indicates a soft s. Only ß actually represents the intended pronunciation.

f course w'd gt by witout it. Bt Englis wld similry srvive vs fewr lttrs, so y nt ablsh 1/2 t lphbt?

I don't know whether you're a native English speaker or not, but you certainly reason like one. I started learning English when I was 6 years old and have had very few problems with it. My wife started learning it when she was 39. She's having a horrible time trying to wrap her head around all the inconsistencies, the incredible amount of stuff that has to be inferred from context and the utter lack of pronunciation rules.

See "read" with a different pronunciation depending on tense (/riːd/ vs. /red/).

So, you’re saying we should actually make German a worse language just for your own convenience? No thanks.

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