Our friends in Germany are having an interesting decade trying to push through a radical change in their spelling and punctuation. 

Some people have had enough of the mysterious Eszett which stands for a double "ss" in some words, and have therefore changed the rules on when it appears, although not going for the Swiss solution of abolishing the tiresome thing altogether. 

Therefore, the traditionalists among us are annoyed, because we thought it endearing and unique, and the reformists are annoyed, because they thought it was difficult and incomprehensible. 

They did consider getting rid of the capitalisation of nouns, but have been influenced by a study showing that it helps in learning to read, which seems eminently plausible.

The committee in charge of overseeing the reform can however only enforce the new rules in schools. The way people write in their personal affairs, newspapers, advertising material, etc is entirely their own affair.

To even consider how this would work in England is funny, the state of spelling, punctuation and grammar in general usage in this country is comically variable anyhow. Even if we had proper rules about where to put commas, I doubt that anyone outside of the GCSE English class (and teaching profession) knows or cares about them.
(Don't get me started on less vs fewer and amount vs number.)

Tags: german, language