Thursday, November 24, 2005

New German Chancellor to Get Website

An AP newswire article, via The Globe and Mail, reports that:

The election of a woman as Germany's chancellor presented government techies with an immediate challenge.

With gender-based spellings in German, the chancellor's website could no longer be bundeskanzler.de. Angela Merkel's official title is "Bundeskanzlerin," with the feminine ending "-in" — but bundeskanzlerin.de was already taken. Now it appears the owner of the feminine version is willing to cede it.

On the bundeskanzlerin.de website was an announcement that its owner, Lars M. Heitmueller, had registered it in 1998 to "hold in trust" until a woman got the job and he could officially turn them over. Merkel took power Tuesday as Germany's first female chancellor.

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