[R-pkg-devel] Producing ß in help files.

[Spencer Graves]

On 2018-01-05 21:41, Rolf Turner wrote:
> On 06/01/18 16:19, Spencer Graves wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 2018-01-05 20:52, Rolf Turner wrote:
>>>
>>> In a help file that I am writing I wish to cite an item by a bloke 
>>> whose surname is Weiß.
>>
>>
>>        Write it "Weiss".
>>
>>
>>        See "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F".
>>
>>
>>        That name is written "Weiss" in Switzerland and Liechtenstein 
>> but "Weiß" in Germany and Austria.  German is the official language 
>> of Liechtenstein and the primary of four official languages of 
>> Switzerland.
>>
>>
>>        Standard high German has several characters that are not used 
>> in English but have standard transliterations using the English latin 
>> alphabet.  These include "ß" = "ss", "ä" = "ae", "ö" = "oe" and "ü" = 
>> "ue".
>
> <SNIP>
>
> I'm sure that you're correct, but I find it frustrating not to be able 
> to produce a symbol (which is readily available elsewhere --- e.g. in 
> LaTeX or from the keyboard using the "compose key") under the ".Rd" 
> system.  I'd like to be *able to produce it*, even if I shouldn't! :-)
>
> cheers,
>
> Rolf
>
> P. S.  It also seems to me to be polite --- if that's the way the 
> bloke writes his name, then  that's the way that I ought to write it 
> when referring to him.


       Agreed -- except that people who have not studied German would 
not recognize "ß" as sounding like "ss":  They might want to pronounce 
it "Weib" -- old German for "woman", though transliterated as "wife" -- 
very different from "Weiß" = "White".


       "Solzhenitsyn" is the English and Spanish transliteration of a 
name that appears in German as "Solschenizyn", French as "Soljenitsyne", 
and Russian as "Солженицын", according to Wikipedia 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn).


       Hope this helps.
       spencer

>
> R.
>