Germans balk at effort to simplify their spelling rules: "Mark Twain found its rules - and exceptions - so complicated, he dubbed it 'The Awful German Language.' Indeed, experts have struggled to streamline Germany's notoriously difficult spelling rules. Then six years ago, German culture ministers and other German-speaking countries forged a controversial agreement... Among other things, it replaced the idiosyncratic ß, called Esszet, with a double 's' at times. It loosened the use of commas, Germanized foreign words - so that 'spaghetti' became 'spagetti' and 'ketchup' 'ketschup' - and broke up interminable compound nouns... Beyond the emotions stirred by whether kids end up writing 'dass' or 'daß,' the debate has had another result."
