Mapping?

[Shawn Steele]

> For me, 'ß' is not 'ss', as Shawn wrote. I do not know why. Just like 'ä' for me as a Swedish person is not 'a' with umlaut. It is a separate character, while in other contexts it is a with an accent (just look in a Swedish and German dictionary and you see the difference). 'ö' and 'ø' are the same for me, but definitely not 'ö' and 'o'.

I saw too many strasse's in Germany (pre-1996) for me to think of them as different :)  To me it's sort of more like a stylistic choice, though some words look funny if spelled without an eszett.  (Same way colour looks a bit different.  I think I prefer fußball.)  Ironically straße looks a bit funny to me, so it must've been a lot of strasse's that I saw :)  'ö' and 'o' aren't the same for me, ('ö' and 'oe' pretty much are though; again I find one or the other form odd in some contexts).

I'm also a terrible data point :)
 
> Locale context make people guess differently. They will do that. Always. Global rules will not be possible to create.

That's for sure :)

-Shawn