Unusual character sequences found in email

am 07.06.2005 12:10:37 von wylbur37

I'm using Windows XP Pro, and Yahoo Mail.
Occasionally, some email messages contain some unusual characters
that consist of 3-letter sequences starting with some characters
that resemble the letters "a" and "E" (but aren't) followed by
a third character. Here are some examples ...

publishingâ=99s

Contract â" A Primer

a â=9Clove songâ=9D to

What causes this?

Is someone using a keyboard from a different system (e.g., a Mac)
that's generating these characters?

Or is it caused by improperly importing a word-processing document
into plain text?

Is there something I can do on my part to correct these sequences?

Re: Unusual character sequences found in email

am 07.06.2005 13:07:17 von Alan Connor

On comp.mail.misc, in <1118139037.567668.240090@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, "wylbur37" wrote:

>
>
> I'm using Windows XP Pro, and Yahoo Mail. Occasionally, some
> email messages contain some unusual characters that consist of
> 3-letter sequences starting with some characters that resemble
> the letters "a" and "E" (but aren't) followed by a third
> character. Here are some examples ...
>
> publishingâs
>
> Contract â" A Primer
>
> a âlove songâ to
>
>
> What causes this?
>
> Is someone using a keyboard from a different system (e.g., a
> Mac) that's generating these characters?
>
> Or is it caused by improperly importing a word-processing
> document into plain text?
>
> Is there something I can do on my part to correct these
> sequences?
>

It's probably UTF-8. Ascii-compatible Unicode. If
you have the right software, they print characters
not found in the English language, and formatting
'characters' too, I believe. See also: UCS.

Most web browsers and modern mail clients can interpret
them. Even newsreaders.

Could be a different keyboard, but not necessarily
or even usually.

How come you have an Earthlink account and could easily use
OE to read and post from news.east.earthlink.net, yet choose
to use the incredibly awkward google web interface to the
Usenet?

The local troll, "Sam" (his/her/its main alias) posts,
in childish defiance of the Netiquette [because
he/she/it thinks this impresses people], with many of
those characters. Or used to. Haven't read any of
his/her/its posts in years. If he/she/it still does
have the weird headers, copy the body to notepad and
check it out.

AC

--
alanconnor AT earthlink DOT net
Use your real return address or I'll never know you
even tried to mail me. http://tinyurl.com/2t5kp

Re: Unusual character sequences found in email

am 07.06.2005 15:50:50 von Sam

Re: Unusual character sequences found in email

am 07.06.2005 15:53:56 von Sam

This is a MIME GnuPG-signed message. If you see this text, it means that
your E-mail or Usenet software does not support MIME signed messages.

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-10660-1118152437-0004
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Usenet Beavis writes:

> It's probably UTF-8. Ascii-compatible Unicode. If

Beavis, what exactly is "Ascii-compatible Unicode".

> you have the right software, they print characters
> not found in the English language, and formatting
> 'characters' too, I believe. See also: UCS.

See also: http://angel.1jh.com/nanae/kooks/alanconnor.shtml

> How come you have an Earthlink account and could easily use
> OE to read and post from news.east.earthlink.net, yet choose
> to use the incredibly awkward google web interface to the
> Usenet?

How come you claim to be a personal friend of Bigfoot,
http://tinyurl.com/6dkxn?

> The local troll, "Sam" (his/her/its main alias) posts,

Gosh, Beavis, you got yourself so wound up that you can't make a post
without mentioning me. I'm touched.

> in childish defiance of the Netiquette [because
> he/she/it thinks this impresses people], with many of
> those characters. Or used to. Haven't read any of
> his/her/its posts in years.

From the Beavis FAQ:

6) How many times, or how often, do you believe is necessary to announce
that you do not read someone's posts? What is your reason for making these
regularly-scheduled proclamations? Who do you believe is so interested in
keeping track of your Usenet-reading habits?

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-10660-1118152437-0004
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQBCpab1x9p3GYHlUOIRAkSUAJ9n7pgrZh83Fba7li68dXM8Iuoj2gCe Lej2
yg6632ATuQm6fs9cci+Khy0=
=+IuC
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--=_mimegpg-commodore.email-scan.com-10660-1118152437-0004--

Re: Unusual character sequences found in email

am 07.06.2005 19:35:19 von Michael Santovec

I get those to sometimes.

That can happen when someone composes the message in Word with Smart Quotes enabled, then
does a copy/paste into their mail program.

With Smart quotes, when someone types ' or " or - in Word, it converts them to extended
characters that have the quotes lean in or out on an angle rather than straight down or a
special dash. It's supposed to look fancier, but those characters don't paste into
standard text well.

The samples you had probably were intended to be:

publishing's

Contract - A Primer

a "love song" to

Not much you can do on your end other than talk to the sender.

--

Mike - http://pages.prodigy.net/michael_santovec/techhelp.htm

"wylbur37" wrote in message
news:1118139037.567668.240090@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com.. .
I'm using Windows XP Pro, and Yahoo Mail.
Occasionally, some email messages contain some unusual characters
that consist of 3-letter sequences starting with some characters
that resemble the letters "a" and "E" (but aren't) followed by
a third character. Here are some examples ...

publishingâ?Ts

Contract â?" A Primer

a â?olove songâ? to

What causes this?

Is someone using a keyboard from a different system (e.g., a Mac)
that's generating these characters?

Or is it caused by improperly importing a word-processing document
into plain text?

Is there something I can do on my part to correct these sequences?

Re: Unusual character sequences found in email

am 07.06.2005 21:10:15 von Support

On Tue, 07 Jun 2005 11:07:17 GMT, Alan Connor wrote:

> How come you have an Earthlink account and could easily use
> OE to read and post from news.east.earthlink.net, yet choose
> to use the incredibly awkward google web interface to the
> Usenet?

Why do you care how somebody chooses to post a question?

--
Norman
~Win dain a lotica, En vai tu ri, Si lo ta
~Fin dein a loluca, En dragu a sei lain
~Vi fa-ru les shutai am, En riga-lint

Re: Unusual character sequences found in email

am 07.06.2005 21:26:04 von Sam