Talk:Voßstraße/Archive 2

message: *200 hits that are spelled that way only because English people don't have an ß on their keyboard do not an English word make. If a word can only be found 200 times in Google, it has hardly become integrated into English. It isn't even a German loanword at that frequency. That's the whole point the ss supporters are missing. It isn't and hasn't been used enough in English to be an English word. It isn't in the English dictionary. I can find 200 hits for recently made up nonsense words. The MOS clearly states, "For terms in common usage, anglicized spellings are used, or native spellings if they use the Latin alphabet"  200 google hits does not equal "common." Second, the ß ligature is considered part of the Latin alphabet, thus Voßstraße is a native spelling using the Latin alphabet . The MOS also states in the "Diacritics, ligatures and letters from (extended) Latin alphabet not commonly used in modern English" section that redirects should be used when a ligature is in the correct spelling. An example is Ægir where the ligature is used in the title, and the separated out spellings are redirected to Ægir. This applies here because it is also a proper noun.pschemp | talk 22:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Reasons for Voßstraße

message: Given the controversy over whether this page was properly moved and then move-protected, and with the consent of both admins who were involved in a dispute over that issue (Pschemp and Avraham), I have reverted the last pagemove. This is a procedural step that I have taken to avoid any perception of unilateral action by an administrator while the matter was under discussion, and I am not expressing a personal opinion (I have none) on what the name for the page should ultimately be. Newyorkbrad 00:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. -- Avi 00:49, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Thank you too. pschemp | talk 00:53, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While the page is at Voßstraße it seems logical to have that name used in the article and put up the foreignchar template. Of course if it gets moved again to this Vossstrasse thing then the article can be changed accordingly. Any objections? Stefán 01:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not tempted to bother until the issue is resolved. pschemp | talk 01:03, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. The present compromise is an effort to keep this page comprehensible to English speakers, since this is, after all, the English WP. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:07, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is the redirect from Vossstrasse, and the term Vossstrasse is in bold as the fourth or so word of the article, would ou consider that sufficient? -- Avi 16:32, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to make things clear, if this page ends up at Voßstraße then we should put up the foreignchar template at the top of the page and in that this Vossstrasse thing appears bolded. I have put it up for demonstration purposes, please take a look. (This is more directed at Avi than Septentrionalis, I think I know what the opinion of the latter is.) Stefán 18:19, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The template is fine; although there was a link to ß in the first line. A mass reversion of spelling would be .  Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am slightly confused by this comment. If after the current discussion the page name ends at Voßstraße then it is appropriate to use that form in the article as well. So the introduction would read: "Voßstraße is a street in central Berlin, capital of Germany. It runs east-west from Ebertstraße to Wilhelmstraße in the borough of Mitte, one street north of Leipziger Straße." Does anybody disagree with this hypothetical position or think a  tag would be appropriate for the page in that form? Stefán 00:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Edited the introduction to "Weilhelmstraße" and "Ebertstraße", as "street" is "Straße" in German, not "Strasse". (The mispellings of the two street names redirect to the correct "ß" spellings, by the way.) --Colognese 19:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Changed my mind.There are so  many different spellings ("xxx Strasse", "xxxstrasse", "xxxstraße") messed up in this article. Touching any of thouse will most probably cause endless discussions, and they do not seem to be about which spelling is correct or wrong, but what "correct" means, and what "wrong" means. Whatever. --Colognese 19:33, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

text: No offence, but we aren't writing this encyclopedia for the stupidest speakers of English we can find. Once it is pointed out that ß = ss I think even those of lower than average intelligence can cope. This isn't the simple English wikipedia. pschemp | talk 03:17, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, but I am not sure whether merely pointing it out is enough. I do not think e would PRINT an encylopedia that way in English, even if the heading retains the ligature. -- Avi 12:12, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just wanted to note that before I went traveling in Germany a few years ago I bought a travel guide. (This was before I started editing Wikipedia.) That guide was the Michelin Green Guide (in English). They have a single comment at the beginning of the book that they will use ß and then they use it consistently on maps, in headings and in the main text for the whole book. (Somebody remarked later that a new version of the book did not use ß as consistently.) Also, later when I was discussing this issue previously, I looked in the Guardian newspaper i had bought that week and there appeared "Deutscher Fußball-Bund" in the text. In the online version of the article the phrase did not appear. Stefán 18:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most recent pagemove 

message: I have been confused about this stuff before.  But I saw the following argument advanced—
Second, the word Vossstrasse simply doesn't exist. This is not a word that has been used so much in English that it has become an English word.
—for keeping the article at "Voßstraße".  I've never heard of the place, so I shall assume that the writer is correct.  But if I accept the argument that this needs to be kept because . . . "This is not a word that has been used so much in English that it has become an English word", then I assume the writer will support changing "Franz Josef Strauß" to "Strauss", since that is "a word that has been used so much in English that it has become an English word".  Hmmmm? Unschool 01:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I did not write that but I could have. I agree that Strauss is a word which has been commonly used in English, we even have an article about it at Strauss and Strauß redirects there. On the other hand the German politician Franz Josef Strauß is not so commonly discussed in English that he has an English name. We have an article on Saint-Étienne although there is a quite similar English word Saint Etienne. Or perhaps you are suggesting that these should all be moved to Saint Stephen? Stefán 01:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Franz Josef Strauss is the common spelling in the UK. For example all four major daily national newspapers spell his name that way: guardian.co.uk  independent.co.uk telegraph.co.uk timesonline.co.uk. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It depends on which name is commonly used in English. Often foreign names stripped of their  funny foreign squiggles are the most common in English without a full translation into English. It is unusual for a foreign name to be translated into English, for example Helmut Kohl and Bernhard Vogel were never translated into Cabbage and Bird, so the German jokes  of that period about their names had to be explained to English speakers who spoke no German. --Philip Baird Shearer 09:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "the German politician Franz Josef Strauß is not so commonly discussed in English that he has an English name".  Are you kidding?  Did you follow German politics at all during the 1980s?  He was everywhere.  And in the 1970s, my German-born professor who taught my course in "Politics of the German-speaking states" spelled his name "Strauss" as well.  Every one of thousands of mentions of him in Time, The Economist, Newsweek, The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, everywhere I turned it was spelled Strauss.  You are either trying to fool us or else you are fooling yourself. Unschool 21:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  And before you throw the semantic and pedantic argument me that Strauss is not "an English name", let me just say then that it is a "name commonly used in English", and that is what the spirit of WP:UE is all about.  You ß-pushers are in complete violation of the spirit of WP:UE, and have created technical arguments that belie the original intent of the policy.Unschool 21:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Having it both ways? 

message: Your continued edits to Vo%C3%9Fstra%C3%9Fe start looking like more and more like vandalism. First you try to impose a foreign spelling contrary to the opinions of other editors. When you can't have your way, you instead try to have the page deleted. Your arguments are, to be honest, just ignorant. You assume bad faith regarding other editors, claiming that the page was created just for the spelling dispute. For your information, you can find articles on many major streets in major capitals so there's no truth to your claim. The article is well written and useful. Then you try arguing that places with no English name has no place on Wikipedia. What about Paris, Madrid and Berlin, any thought on trying to delete them as well? That the spelling isn't using only "English "letters is no problem, try having a lok at Örebro, Troms%C3%B6, M%C3%BCnster or C%C4%83l%C4%83ra%C5%9Fi. JdeJ 16:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, my edits to this page are compliance with the Manual of Style, against disruptive efforts to move this page out of the English language. The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage (e.g., Besançon, Edvard Beneš and Göttingen, but Nuremburg, naive (not naïf), and Florence).  The argument that this name is neither English or German is not mine; you will find it on this talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

text: That's a bit one-sided, JdeJ. The result of the straw poll for a page move was "no consensus," so you could equally well say that the ess-zet is being imposed contrary to the opinions of other editors. Leaving aside Pmanderson's recent suggestions about deletion and the purpose of the article, there are perfectly valid arguments above for not using ess-zet, and in particular, your comparison of a totally foreign character to familiar letters with diacritical marks has been repeatedly put forth and debunked.  You can see from the discussion above that Pmanderson's view has substantial support, as does the opposing view, and it's not appropriate to characterize his edits as vandalism. --Reuben 17:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. I'm just tired of it all; and looking through the article, as I had to do on the spelling issue, I don't really see enough content to be worth it. (It was not created for the spelling dispute; it was  created, with all five s's, by a British editor, who is interested in German history, and  has now left. But its main function is the dispute; it has not changed otherwise.)  Others may disagree. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Reuben, I agree that it's completely correct to have different opinions on the spelling but please note that that was not the reason I questioned Pmanderson's edits. It is when he tries to have the article deleted because he cannot have it his way that it's becoming disruptive. He's done that two times today already. JdeJ 18:35, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you did write "First you try to impose a foreign spelling contrary to the opinions of other editors. When you can't have your way, ..." as if there were a consensus for using esszet and Pmanderson edit-warring against it.  I disagree with that characterization.  The AfD has been procedurally closed, which looks correct to me.  --Reuben 18:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disruptive edits by [[Pmanderson]] 

message: I have procedurally closed the AfD that was filed today on this article. A spelling or naming-conventions dispute about the title of an article does not provide a basis for deletion. This closure does not preclude another AfD against the article with a more appropriate basis, although I note that the article was already AfD'd once before with a Keep result. Newyorkbrad 18:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD closed 

message: German Magazine Der Spiegel reports in his online edition about "strife in web lexicon" and "Wikipedia-founder not allowed to write" ("Wikipedia-Gründer darf nicht mitschreiben") , listing another four of the absurdest Wikipedia-Debates:
* 1. Teil: Wikipedia-Gründer darf nicht mitschreiben (Jimbo and Talk:Mzoli's)
* 2. Teil: Freddie oder Fred? (actor Fred Thompson)
* 3. Teil: Vossstraße oder Voßstraße?
* 4. Teil: Buchstabenbreite auf Kennzeichen (width of letters on German license plates )
* 5. Teil: Wie groß ist der Todesstern? (how big is the Death Star?)
The report roughly translates as follows: Of all things it's the English Wikipedia that features an article about Berlin's Voßstraße, with 6500 bytes, while there is none on German Wikipedia. Even more astonishing is the discussion on the correct spelling of Voßstraße, about 97k of text currently - despite the fact that there is a photo showing that on Berlin's street signs its written Voßstraße. But that is not the point, the correct transcription into English is. Not everywhere there are keyboards with ß available. -- Matthead discuß!     O       18:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spiegel report "Streit im Web-Lexikon" 

message: I am a native German speaker and I read most of the conversation up to yesterday. I am sorry our alphabet poses such a problem to English speakers. 
Personally, I certainly like Voßstraße to be spelled "right" in an English text. But of course, I am aware that most English readers will have problems with this spelling. I can´t say anything about what way the English should spell a German name. 
But I can give you some background information about German orthography. Germans themselves did have problems with the eszett. Sometimes, even in typewriters or fonts used in Germany, the ß is missing and what we do then is to substitute it by ss.
But German and German isn´t always the same. First, there are regional differences. In Swiss German, there is no ß (anymore). They simply deleted it out of their usage. Second, there are differences that have to do with the time the name (or word) has been written or first published. Unlike most other nations, in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxemburg, there is a central commission dealing with how German is to be spelled. Since the middle of the Nineties, a major change took place (it turned out not to be as radical as when they started out, though). Part of this change was that a sharp-spoken ß is now written ss. This is true for Voss, but not for Straße, which is not sharp. The new rules, though, don´t apply to old names (including street names), first, because the street is older, second, because the man it´s named after wrote himself Voß. That is why in German, this particular Voßstraße still is spelled the old way.
(BTW: The Danish once did equally: They substituted the x for ks. Except existing names, like in the author´s name Martin Andersen-Nexø, who came from Nexø on the island of Bornholm. There now is a confusion whether to write the town´s name in the old or new spelling. cf: http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neks%C3%B8)
In order to add to your confusion: It is perfectly thinkable there are other "Vossstrasses" in other German towns and cities that are written differently. And right: Google Earth tells me there is a "Voss-Straße" in Sarstedt, Lower Saxony.
When I entered "Voss" in German Wikipedia, a long list of people appeared, written either Voss or Voß. The family name originated from the lower German word for fox. And since the fox got its name well before people bothered to think about how to spell it, there are different possible spellings.
Before the official change in spelling, triple-consonants (like sss) wouldn´t be allowed. But now it is. So, Vossstrasse would be acceptable for native speakers (although it´s only an ersatz).
(BTW: ersatz has gone into the English language, and it has changed into English usage. It is now always spelled with a minor e, although nouns in German will always be spelled with a capital initial letter.)
Another thing that is complicating the subject is Voss Strasse. There once was a time (until the end of the nineteenth century, I think), when some street names have been divided in two (like Voß Straße) or divided with a "double-hyphen", quite similar to an equality sign ("=", which was then in  use; like Voß=Straße).
You see, there are even more spelling possibilities in German than most of you might have been aware of. I think this incongruous use during space and time adds to your confusion.
To sum it up: I´d like to see Voßstraße, but I think Vossstrasse (in a English text) now would be acceptable, although it looks awkward. But then, I think it should be very clear there should remain a hint on the right spelling at the beginning of the text.
:I am a native German speaker too and can only agree. "ss" is the common transliteration for the ß (Eszett). There is a very old version of a transliteration with "sz", but that is not common and I think it is not a correct transliteration anymore. 
:The Voßstraße is just still called Voßstraße, because it is an old name. The German spelling rules do not affect names. And Voßstraße is a name and so it kept its name. The modern version of this name would be "Vossstraße" with 3 "s". So you should call it Voßstraße and transliterate it with Vossstrasse, which is the correct and the common version without Eszett (ß).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.139.182.218 (talk) 10:32, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why would the modern germa version be "Vossstraße"? Thats nonsens, maybe this person spelled its name with an long o, so it would still be "Voßstraße". And beside this; ß was also a letter in us-alphabet once. This letter was used in the constitution, in official documents and everywhere. My Grandparents (Mr. Richard Hirsch and Mrs. Helene Hirsch, born Mai) have this letter on their documents entering the USA on Ellis Island. So even hundred years ago this letter was used in the USA. So why not just use it in this article. In any other english article the Eszett/ß/"latin letter sharp s" is used, so WHY NOT HERE???--129.13.186.1 11:08, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The name Voß NEVER had a long o. No matter how the all the Vosses of all times spelled their names, it was and will always be spoken with a short o. Think 'Fox'. So the new (it's not called modern by the way) german way of spelling would be Vossstraße, if Voß were not a name. Aurogallus 09:19, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ss, sss, ß? A little background knowledge in German orthography 

message: After having read much of the ongoing discussions on Vossstrasse, Potsdam Square and Meissen I thought there must be a different problem to the solution. Obviously there are two very different parties, neither of them is going to give in. And if they do, it's only because they are overruled. So I had this idea of a different approach. Please, do tell me if this is old hat and had been discussed elsewhere. My theory: It is neither possible nor desirable to find a general naming and spelling convention because the naming of foreign things is very much a matter of contemporary zeitgeist. 
Some evidence: In post-war Germany with the economy booming, Germans discovered Bella Italia to be their new favourite holiday destination. Of course they wouldn't speak a single word of Italian. Piazza San Marco in Venezia? Sorry we must have missed that, but we saw der Markusplatz in Venedig - wundervoll! - Espresso? No thanks, a cup of Kaffee, please! Of course Venedig didn't get it's German name in the 1950s, I guess has always been called that way - but it suited the contemporary taste to use German or at least German-sounding words. You couldn't sell Coke in early 20th century Germany, you had to name it Coka-Cola. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the German lefts discovered the Italian Toscana as a kind of promised land of food and culture. Being members of the 1968 socio-revolutionary student movement, overly correct, not wanting to be too 'German' at all, not wanting to violate the beautiful Italian language, Germans intellectuals took the habit of incorporating foreign words into german, complete with strange accents and even Italian grammar: "I'd have due cappuccini, please." To me this looks like some kind of exaggerated attempt to make up for their xenophobic post war (nazi?) parents.  But nobody cared about the Eiffel tower still being the Eiffelturm, Beijing still being Peking. So obviously, if there is some kind of emotion involved, towards a foreign place, if something changes in the way we look at a place, people want to leave their mark on it. 
We say Markusplatz but not Trafalgarplatz. In German we call the United Nations UN [uuh-anne], instead of VN [phow-anne] (Vereinte Nationen) while the french - certainly - call it ONU (Organisation des Nations Unies). But we still say EU for Europäische Union - not EU for European Union. *joking*
English Language Wikipedia uses English words where they exist. Idea: How about explaining e.g. in a footnote, where the English translation came from, when it was first used in that way, and why. 
And as for the ß, don't ask the Germans, we will always tell you "Ach, do what you want with the ßs, we are not so sure either...". That's because in Germany, due to the German spelling reform of 1996 things have gone wild. Adding to the confusion, German language has a serious problem with the massive influence of (American) English language - mainly through advertising and - yes - their cultural world domination, resulting in a high percentage of Germans having lost their ability to write proper German. The good old Bäckerei (bakery) you may now find being called Back shop - baking shop. Hello?! English? German? Back? Compound? Also there is capostrophic confusion about the apostrophe, mainly because English apostrophe rules are slightly different to German rules and people tend to mix them up.
Anyway, enough blabla. Tell me what you think. Aurogallus 09:12, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aurogallus, I appreciate your obviously sincere effort to find some compromise here.  My problem is that I'm not totally clear on what it is that you are proposing. Unschool 02:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  So sorry, you are completely right, I sort of drifted away and didn't make a point. Let me try: Regardless of the outcome of this ß or ss dispute, as a kind of foot note I would love to see a 'history' of the english translation or transliteration, not only regarding Voßstraße, but other common names. Not to prove any of the spelling versions, but to document them. Something like "In the 50s english media always called it 'Voss strasse', while scientific publications called it 'Voßstraße'. In 200X, as a result of a huge argument, the Wikipedia community decided that the naming convention should be xyz". Just a thought, maybe this would make a whole different topic to be filed under 'A history of translation and transliteration'. Aurogallus 10:12, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contemporary aspects of transliteration and translation 

message: Doesn't anybody here wonder why the German Wikipedia doesn't even have an article about the Voßstraße? --Joe —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.64.16.244 (talk • contribs)  09:26, 16 October 2007 
:For Germans, it's just a street, with the :de:Reichskanzlei "an der Ecke Wilhelmstraße/Voßstraße". Also, few of them feel the need to fight against the evil letter ß, which was the motivation to start Voss-strasse in the first place.-- Matthead discuß!     O       08:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  On what basis do you state that the motivation for this article was "to fight against the evil letter ß"?  That hardly seems to comply with WP:AGF. Unschool 10:36, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "WP:I can read" supersedes WP:AGF. -- Matthead discuß!     O       11:25, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Indeed, your conclusion is clearly well-founded.  Perhaps you should have included that particular link in your original assertion? Unschool 03:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The axe-grinding about ß/ss started in Wilhelmstraße, and when the dispute came out in favour of ß, this article here was created to make a WP:POINT. That's why German Wikipedia has no article on Voßstraße (yet). -- Matthead discuß!     O       06:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Matthead is mistaken; see the archives here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voßstraße in German Wikipedia?