Tongue Twisters

How do you spell mayonnaise in German? Traditionalists will tell you Mayonnaise, but on Aug. 1, 2005, the authorized spelling is set to become Majonäse. On the same day, Frischgebacken (freshly baked) will turn into frisch gebacken, as countless delightful German compound words are broken up by official decree. Other new rules will govern where a comma belongs in a sentence, and use of the good old-fashioned , which will only follow long vowels and diphthongs, while ss will follow short vowels; so it's ich wei (I know) but ich wusste (I knew). Alles klar? Not really. When Time asked Steffen...