Comment by mxmlnkn
2 days ago
I never understood why the recommended replacement for ß is ss. It is a ligature of sz (similar to & being a ligature of et) and is even pronounced ess-zet. The only logical replacement would have been sz, and it would have avoided the clash of Masse (mass) and Maße (measurements). Then again, it only affects whether the vowel before it is pronounced short or long, and there are better ways to encode that in written language in the first place.
I agree that writing it "sz" might have created less problems.
However, it is likely that it has never been pronounced "sz", but always "ss" and the habit of writing "sz" for the double consonant may have had the same reason as the writing of "ck" instead of the double "kk".