Dear colleagues,

It seems to me that we have two options to address the IP's concerns about Sharp S:

1) we can say something like

"Sharp S can only occur when used in a valid German word or name. Thus it cannot be the first letter in a TLD, must follow a vowel, etc."

At which point we will need to reference an authoritative source on what are valid German words and valid German names.

2) we can say something like

"The variant relationship between double S (ss) and Sharp S exists because of different usages in different places where German is the official language. But that relationship is otherwise irrelevant for constructing TLDs. From the beginning, TLDs have existed which were not valid words. That practice has continued as new gTLDs (not to mention ccTLDs) were established. It is not our intention to police German spelling rules. Therefore a Sharp S can occur at the beginning of a TLD, following a consonant (including following another Sharp S), etc."

I confess that my initial inclination was to go with option 1. But Michael has convinced me that the second option is more reasonable.

If we go with the former, it would clearly need to go in Section 7 WLEs. That may also be the correct place to put the latter text, if that is how we go. Or maybe another location would be better....

Bill Jouris
Inside Products
bill.jouris@insidethestack.com
831-659-8360
925-855-9512 (direct)