>> Consider the word `Dorfladen' (village shop). Using `=' to
>> indicate a compound break point and `-' for normal ones, the proper
>> break points are `Dorf=la-den' which means no `fl' ligature. Note
>> that `Fladen' means `cow dung', so having a ligature there is
>> really bad.
>
> But "Dorfladen" is not ambiguous.
Yes, but some web browsers like Firefox automatically apply an `fl'
ligature...
> Asmus war referring to ambiguous cases created by the way compound
> words are spelled in German. For those, some user interaction is
> necessary, and it's my view that there are unobtrusive ways of
> interacting with the user about this.
Looking up my hyphenated word list containing about 430000 entries of
the most frequent German words,[1] I find a *single* entry which
belongs into this class, using the historical `st' ligature:
`Wach-stube' vs. `Wachs-tube'. However, improper use of `fl' or `fi'
ligatures can be seen very often; just think of words like `Auflage'
(Auf=la-ge).
Werner
[1] http://repo.or.cz/?a=project_list&s=wortliste
