invisible strands (off topic)

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 10:38 AM 4/3/00 -0400, you wrote:
>>Larry wrote:
>> >   Or should I assume from the last part of what follows that it's
>> > not something I can fix on my end?
>>
>>I fix such things on my end by hitting delete.  I prefer using
>>Unix mailx, which doesn't read MIME or HTML.  I see no reason
>>for anybody to send e-mail as either of the above.  If I think
>>it's something I can't live without, I exit mailx with x, leaving
>>all mail as new, and re-enter with a popmail reader.  But 99.99%
>>of the time I assume it's not worth the bother and just delete it
>>unread.
>>
>>Why do people choose to send encoded e-mail?  What's wrong with
>>nice, clear ASCII?
>
>I think a lot of people who send encoded mail don't choose to do so.
>My mother just got a new computer with various Microsoft products
>preinstalled, including Outlook Express. The default configuration is
>to send mail HTML-ized. I've been unable to get a clear enough
>statement of how to turn this off that she can follow and that
>actually conforms to the various menu options that she sees. I gather
>that this is not atypical. In addition, I think that a lot of folks
>don't realize that if they use the same formatting they use in their
>word processor (e.g., full underlining instead of _this_ kind of
>underlining) that too will produce some kind of encoded mail rather
>than clear text.
>
>Alice Faber, Manager                                         (860) 685-2954
>Infant Language Development Laboratory                  afaber at wesleyan.edu
>400 Judd Hall--Wesleyan University                               or
>Middletown, CT 06459                             faber at pop.haskins.yale.edu

In a message I just sent to the list, I was asked if I wanted to send it
plain, styled, or both.  I don't know what this means, but I've been
hitting "both" to play it safe.  What would happen if I didn't--would some
readers see only a bunch of capital letters or what?