Re: Does this mean anything?

["Sharon Henderson" <sharon@intercon.com>]

> > 	Tschuss, Meli 
>  
> I've seen this word "Tschuss" here and there, usually with two dots 
> over the "u", and with the first "s" in the "ss" writ long and crammed 
> up against the second till they look like a "Beta". 
> How is it supposed to be pronounced?  I'm wondering if it might 
> be connected to a Polish film I once saw where the characters seemed to 
> be saying "chess" every time they left a room. 
> Could it be that it's not a native German word? 
>  
> -- Alfredo 


Greetings, O Alfredo! 

	The funny little letter you are describing is one of my favorites--it 
is the "ess-tzett", and I have a keyboard character for it, but wasn't sure it 
would parse over the network.  I email German-speaking friends here at the 
office all the time, and it runs happily back and forth--as do umlauts and 
other international characters--but sometimes emailing off-site makes them 
disappear.  The standard is to write it, then, as a double S; Umlauted U's 
tend to be written as "eu" (an approximation of how they're pronounced).

	"Tsch" in German is pronounced like the tch in the English word itch.  
U with an umlaut is pronounced by making a little opening with your mouth as 
if you were going to say an exaggerated, French-accented ooooo (pursing your 
lips) but you vocalize an E through that opening.  (It's not nearly as odd as 
it sounds ....  <g>)  and the ess-tzett is pronounced like a soft S in 
English--in fact, like the S in the word soft.  So, all that to say that the 
word is pronounced very like "chess", if there's more U-ness on the E ....

	I think it's originally a German word; it does mean "see you later," so 
for characters in a film to be saying it as they leave is spot on!  :-)  
Poland and Germany are pretty close to one another, and there are Germans in 
Poland and vice-versa.  So it could easily cross over.

	Cheers,
	Meli

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