Rudy Velthuis (TeamB) wrote:

> Loren Szendre wrote:
> 
>> Rudy Velthuis (TeamB) wrote:
>>>>> How is it pronounced? Does the first part rhyme on Ma__e or on
>> Masse?  >> Masse.
>>>> My name is a simple concatenation of "Kasse" and "Baum".
>>> Then an __ would indeed give people the wrong pronunciation.
>> Why? Es-set is a simple orthographic replacement
> 
> No, it isn't. An __ in words like Ma__e, Stra__e, Fu__, etc. means the
> preceding vowel must be pronounced long. If the __ is replaced by double
> s, it is pronounced short (e.g. Masse [*]).

Thanks for the explanation. I'll have to get out my Duden. I took German 
long before I learned the principles of linguistics, so I'll have to 
rethink some of my long-held assumptions.


One last question: if you are using, say an old American typewriter, and 
you have to represent "Stra__e", you couldn't type "Strase", because that 
would be pronounced "shtraza" -- so are you saying there is no way to 
represent the word in Americangelese without the s-set? For instance, we 
can replace "__" with "ae" (even in German, I believe).


Loren sZendre