Since December 2004 the Council for German Orthography, the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung, has regulated how standard German is spelled. It watches how people actually write. Its rules state the principle: Die Kodifizierung folgt dem Schreibgebrauch. (Codification follows usage.) The capital letter ẞ shows how this works. Proposals for it go back to 1879, and it entered the international Unicode standard in 2008. Only since 29 June 2017 has it been part of official spelling, as an option next to SS. In 2024 the council also struck spellings that had not won out in usage, among them Jogurt and Spagetti. The updated rules have been binding for schools and public administration since 1 July 2024.