Posted by Klaus on August 08, 2001 at 19:23:37:
In Reply to: Re: Re: diabelskie skrzypce posted by Dan Schultz on August 08, 2001 at 18:44:18:
Unknown and irrelevant because "bumbal?" only appears in this form on your screen in this form because of limitations in the ASCII system. Or maybe an unknown letter has lead you to a visual misinterpretation.
German has a letter called SZ. It never occurs in the beginning of a word, so you will not see it as a capital. Visually somewhat like a capital B with upper left corner rounded and lower loop open at the bottom close to the vertical stem. Some fonts will have the vertical stem descend a bit below the "bottom line".
The Germans have a backup spelling for SZ (when using typewriters with no German signs), which is ss. The differences between SZ and plain S have semantic bearings. A small sample using the backup spelling:
Er ist = He is
Er isst = He eates (I very well know that for some of you there is no significant semantic differences betwen to be and to eat. But that is another discussion).
Despite Chuck and myself being on different platforms this letter appears correctly on my monitor.
Back to your question giving it a little twist:
Bumbass = diabelskie skrzypce = rumsterstang = the devils violin.
Klaus
PS: On my Mac I get the SZ proper when typing alt-s (ß). Same result with US and DK keyboard layouts.