[Ads-l] testing intelligent quotes

[Joel S. Berson]

To Dan and Garson,

1)  It has occurred to me that there is an 
(existential?) problem here -- can I be sure that 
what I see when someone sends me a message like 
Garson's (below) is what the sender sees when he/she displays it?

I can presumably resolve this dilemma by asking a 
question only in characters that everyone can 
understand, because it is said in an Esperanto (so-called Latin One).

Thus in Garson's message below, are the =20 and 
=93abc=94 =91def=92 also what Garson 
saw?  (Actually, I'm sure the answer here is "yes".)

2)  The =20 is presumably what Garson's email 
handler creates from one of the various 
end-of-line characters.  There is no single, 
standardized encoding for "end of line".  See the 
the entertaining Wikipedia article "Newline" 
--  "In computing, a newline, also known as a 
line ending, end of line (EOL), or line break, is 
a special character or sequence of characters 
signifying the end of a line of text. The actual 
codes representing a newline vary across 
operating systems, which can be [sic!] a problem 
when exchanging text files between systems with 
different newline representations."  (The 
representations are formed from LF (Line Feed), 
Carriage Return (CR), or various combinations thereof.)

3)   Garson's message reminds me of a supposition 
I came to months ago, but perhaps did not 
communicate to this list -- the "mangling" Garson 
sees (as do I) comes from senders using gmail.

4)  WB noted today:

>WB noted earlier: The only safe path through the ADS-List mine field
>is the U.S. keyboard alphabet & numbers, some punctuation, etc.  Aisle
>type up my notes in Libre Office Writer (because itch free), copy &
>paste into an ebola-proof washing machine (Note Pad, spitting out
>.txt), recopy & paste into an ADSLpated message, trying to remember to
>strip out umlauts, graves, acutes, circumflexes, genuflexions, quotes,
>apostrophes.

However, I was able (with Eudora) to place 
(intelligent) quotes into a message to ADS-L, and 
receive them back properly.   I am also able to 
use the Latin One accents (as listed by WB, 
excluding genuflexions) with ADS-L.  (I construct 
such characters by switching temporarily to the 
(Windows) "United States - International" 
keyboard mapping.)  Can I infer that it is WB's 
email application, not the list, that is 
misunderstanding these ïntelligent"quotes, the accents, etc.?

5)   I don't yet have an understanding of when 
and how the "mangling" into representations like 
’ (a-circumflex / euro sign / trade-mark) 
occurs.  It would help if someone who receives 
such representations will let the list know what 
their email application is.  (Unfortunately, I 
can't do this myself, because Eudora seems addled 
-- it has displayed things like ’ in some 
messages from some list members, but it cannot 
afterward locate such messages via its Find function!)

Joel

At 10/16/2014 09:20 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:

>Joel (and list members): Below are the first seven lines of Joel's
>message as they were received by me. I am using the gmail website to
>read email from a gmail account. The text below looks the same with
>the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome on Windows 8.1.
>
>Each line of Joel's message has an =20 appended for an unknown (to me)
>reason. The intelligent quotes are also mangled.
>
>[Begin excerpt]
>=93abc=94 =91def=92
>
>In my text the above appear as intelligent=20
>quotation marks before this message is=20
>sent.  Let's see what they appear as to various=20
>members' email applications.  One answer from=20
>each of three factions should be sufficient --=20
>either as intelligent quotes (different forms for=20
>[End excerpt]
>
>Garson
>
>On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:14 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the 
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      testing intelligent quotes
> > 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > =93abc=94 =91def=92
> >
> > In my text the above appear as intelligent=20
> > quotation marks before this message is=20
> > sent.  Let's see what they appear as to various=20
> > members' email applications.  One answer from=20
> > each of three factions should be sufficient --=20
> > either as intelligent quotes (different forms for=20
> > opening and closing), unintelligent quotes (same=20
> > form for opening and closing), or gibberish=20
> > (strings of three characters, such as =E2=80=99 for a single quote or=
> >  apostrophe).
> >
> > If for some email applications they appear as=20
> > quotation marks (whether intelligent or=20
> > unintelligent), then the fault lies in your email application, dear Brutus.
> >
> > Joel=20
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org