What is the history of the ß (Eszett) in the T1 encoding of Computer modern?

Question

In the default font (Computer modern) the ß looks ugly to me. It really sticks out on a page as if it would come from a different font. Here's an image:

What is the history of this character? Why is there a vertical bar sticking out on the left? Why is the bow on the top right much thinner than any other line in this font.

I'm using

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

but even if I disable T1, the ß still looks weird (but slightly differently so).

Concrete questions are: What is the history of this character? Was it part of Knuth's original Computer modern or a later addition? What are font options to get an ß that is more in line with the rest of the font? I've tried lmodern which is a variant of Computer modern. Its ß looks better to me, but it still has the little bar sticking out on the left.

Answer 1

The glyph makes much more sense visually when seen as a ligature of long s and round s, one of the two traditional forms of the ß (the other, of course, being long s and z). Here's a comparison, using outlines from cm-unicode, version 0.6.3a:

Here I've used f as a reference for the first part of the ligature, since I couldn't find a long s in cm-unicode. So the "super-thin" line you mention in your comment is thin because it's only acting as a ligature between the two sub-glyphs. You can see that the s part has been compressed horizontally to keep the total width reasonable, but on the vertical axis it matches up very closely.

Addendum: having discovered from other answers that Jörg Knappen was the designer of this ß, I was able to find a few contemporary Usenet postings relating to the design. The most concise explanation seems to be this one, from Knappen himself:

I consciously redesigned the sharp s to exhibit the ligature structure <long s> <short s>. Despite the popolar name eszett I find the arguments in favour of this analysis (as given by Tschiold) more convincing than the ones in favour of <long> <z>.

There's also a thread in German which can be summarized as a vigorous discussion over the relative merits of the ſs and ſʒ forms, in which Knappen firmly defends his choice.

One remaining question is why Knappen made the upper part so narrow, when many (most?) fonts with the ſs variant bring the ligature line out much further to the right -- Linotype Aldus Roman, for example:

In this case I don't think there's anything on record, and we have to assume it's a personal stylistic choice. This "compressed" style of ſs certainly isn't unique to Computer Modern. For example, here it is in Antiqua:

As to actually replacing this glyph with something you find more appealing: if your TeX installation is sufficiently recent, switching to Latin Modern should be enough. From Martin Schröder's answer and barbara beeton's comments, it seems that the Knappen ß was the default in some older releases of Latin Modern. So if a simple \usepackage{lmodern} doesn't do the trick, you could consider updating your TeX installation, or following Ulrike Fischer's instructions for selecting the Knuth ß from the cm-super fonts.

Answer 2

I don't know why Knuth designed the ß as it is in the cm-fonts. I don't quite remember why Jörg Knappen changed the look of the ß in the ec-fonts, but I do remember that there was some quite heated discussions about the choice.

If you don't like both ß there is no much you can do (apart from redesigning the glyph yourself). But as the cm-super fonts contain both variants of the ß you can use the "old" version also with T1-encoding without switching to the lmodern fonts:

Find cm-super-t1.enc (in fonts/enc/dvips normally), make a copy e.g. cm-super-t1-alt.enc and store it where latex can find it (e.g. in the current directory). Open the new .enc file and change at the end /germandbls to /germandbls.alt.

Find cm-super-t1.map (in fonts/map), make a copy e.g. cm-super-t1-alt.map, store it where it can be found. Open it and replace every occurance of cm-super-t1.enc by cm-super-t1-alt.enc

Then load the new map file e.g. with \pdfmapfile:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
%\pdfmapfile{= cm-super-t1-alt.map} % to replace ß in all fonts
% for the example only for one font:
\pdfmapline{= ecrm1000 SFRM1000 " T1Encoding ReEncodeFont " <cm-super-t1-alt.enc <sfrm1000.pfb}
\begin{document}
The original of the ec font (larger to be able to show all in one document):

{\large grüße}

The alternative germandbls.alt from cm-super:

grüße

In the cm-fonts: \fontencoding{OT1}\selectfont 

grüße

In the lmodern fonts:
\fontfamily{lmr}\selectfont

grüße

\end{document}

If you want to use the new ß also with dvips or dvipdfmx or don't want to bother with \pdfmapfileyou will have to activate the new map-file with updmap(-sys),

Answer 3

I can't do anything about the font you are using but would recommend to use the lmodern fonts, a modernised variant of the Computer Modern fonts.

\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\begin{document}
\begin{center} 
    Große Straße ließen gießen maßen heißt Spaß Fuß Maß Gruß reißend
\end{center}
\end{document}

Addendum: Below is the ß glyph in some well respected fonts for comparison.

Answer 4

What you are complaining about is the "ß" of the dc fonts created by Jörg Knappen, the first 8 bit extension of the original 7 bit Computer Modern fonts. This was digitized in the cm-super fonts (see Latin Modern vs cm-super?).

This new ß was disliked a lot when Jörg created the dc fonts (which later became the ec fonts).

The ß as designed by Knuth (and most likely inherited from Monotype Modern 8A) looks like the one in the answer by Christian Lindig.

The Latin Modern fonts (which you get with \usepackage{lmodern}) provide both glyphs (I believe) but default to Knuth's (after complaints from the Germans).

Answer 5

This is a ligature of two 's' characters, one following another.

It was in common usage in English as well, until the end of the 1700s.

A single "s" character was often drawn as an "f" without the crossbar. When two consecutive "s" characters were drawn, they were combined into the form about which you are asking.

In English, the first character morphed into the "s" glyph during the Napoleonic Wars. The ligature then disappears from contemporary English usage, but persisted in German.

In Unicode, while ligatures are provided as convenience characters, the standard strongly recommends that ligatures are decomposed into their component character points, while encoding them as a ligature. Unicode is about encoding things as characters, not as glyphs. The Unicode standard shows the ligature of "f" and "i" as its canonical example of ligatures, in Section 2.2.

Examples of the morph of the long s and the fs ligature in English can be found in "The Art of Defence on Foot", by Taylor and Roworth. There are three revisions, 1798, 1804 and 1824. The revisions between the 2nd and 3rd editions are almost entirely changes to the typesetting of the long 's'. (The 1804 Edition also makes extensive use of the 'ft', 'fh' and 'ct' ligatures, and even the 'fk' and 'ff' ligatures).

[ed. Steven B. Segletes] The fs ligature is shown in the following, well known document (circa 1776), both in the words "necessary" and "Happiness" which appear about mid column in lines 1 and 4. Note: it is also used for words beginning in "s", such as "secure" on line 4.

And as far as printed copies, it is likewise so (though presented as both an "ff" in "diffolve"and an "fs" in "Happinefs"), as seen in the first printings of the Declaration (ref: http://www.ushistory.org/us/10g.asp):

Answer 6

Here's what the Unicode Standard has to say on the matter of the existence, history and derivation of this glyph:

ß character point 00DF

from C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement codepage.

Latin small letter sharp s
= Eszett
German
Uppercase is "SS"
in origin a ligature of [character point] 017f ſ and [character point] 0073 s
[compare to character point] 03B2 ß greek small letter beta