[Ads-l] Garbling (Re: on national grammar day)

Thu Mar 24 21:19:50 UTC 2016

Use Mutt, it works perfectly!

There's no guidance about these issues, which have long been a problem, in any of the available documentation. I'll once again reach out to the maintainers and see if they can help.

Jesse Sheidlower
ADS-L

On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 04:58:16PM -0400, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> Thank you for writing your note, David Champion. I suspected that the
> mailing list server software was somehow mishandling the message
> headers, but I did not have the expertise to identify the problem.
> 
> I usually read the mailing list messages via gmail in a browser window
> and the scrambled messages are a problem. Perhaps there is some way to
> configure the mailing list software so that it handles headers
> correctly.
> 
> Garson
> 
> On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 4:06 PM, David Champion <dgc.ads at bikeshed.us> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       David Champion <dgc.ads at BIKESHED.US>
> > Subject:      Re: Garbling (Re: on national grammar day)
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I'll de-lurk for this - finally a topic I'm not an abject amateur in!
> >
> > This isn't a problem with e-mail apps, it's a problem with LISTSERV,
> > which is frankly a rather antiquated piece of list management software
> > that frequently does not follow e-mail norms or standards.
> >
> > Most of the garbling I see here is an equal symbol followed by two
> > (hexademical) digits, which is a form of encoding called "quoted
> > printable" or QP. It protects non-ASCII content such as accented
> > characters, smart quotes, and emoji during ASCII transport.  It's great,
> > and almost all e-mail software supports it.
> >
> > However, there's a rule for indicating that a message is QP-encoded.  If
> > the message has a header:
> >
> >         Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> >
> > then it will be properly decoded.  If it doesn't, then it _shouldn't_ be
> > decoded.  If you see these "garbled" messages, it's because your client
> > is aggressive in assuming QP encoding even when it's not explicit.
> >
> > LISTSERV is either QP-encoding e-mail and not inserting that header, or
> > it's removing that header from QP-encoded mail.  (Sometimes this happens
> > under the moniker of "de-MIMEing" or "MIME defanging".  It's a primitive
> > yet effective way of blocking e-mail-based malware.)  Anyway, that's why
> > we see the garbling on the list.  It's something that UGA's LISTSERV
> > admins need to resolve.
> >
> > Best,
> > David
> >
> > * On 24 Mar 2016, Joel Berson wrote:
> >> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> >> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> Poster:       Joel Berson <berson at ATT.NET>
> >> Subject:      Re: Garbling (Re: on national grammar day)
> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> It's not everyone who sees such messages garbled.=C2=A0 I, for example, hav=
> >> e received them all (except for a few a while back), from both Ben and Denn=
> >> is, in readable form.
> >>
> >> However, to be kind to those whose email apps are not smart enough to handl=
> >> e "smart quotes", accented letters, etc., perhaps Ben and Dennis can try se=
> >> nding a test message in "plain text", and ask those who have seen garbled m=
> >> essages whether that loses the troublesome characters without also losing o=
> >> ther information.
> >>
> >> Joel
> >>
> >>       From: Benjamin Barrett <mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM>
> >>  To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU=20
> >>  Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2016 1:43 AM
> >>  Subject: [ADS-L] Garbling (Re: on national grammar day)
> >>   =20
> >> There have always been problems on the ADS list with garbled characters. I =
> >> looked on the Linguist List but didn=E2=80=99t see this issue addressed. It=
> >>  seems that some people don=E2=80=99t have this problem, but it=E2=80=99s r=
> >> eally frustrating for me to try to figure out which garblings are quotation=
> >>  marks, which are accented Latin letters and which are from other languages=
> >> . Even equal signs come to me as garbled characters. I generally just muddl=
> >> e through, though I can always go to the website to find posts without the =
> >> garbling.
> >>
> >> Dennis Baron=E2=80=99s posts are even more problematic as they are 100 perc=
> >> ent garbled for at least those of us who receive the other sorts of garblin=
> >> gs. Again, you can get his postings without the garbling on the website.
> >>
> >> Is there a way to fix this problem?
> >>
> >> Benjamin Barrett
> >> Formerly of Seattle, WA
> >>
> >> > On 22 Mar 2016, at 22:22, Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >> >=20
> >> > Eh?
> >> >=20
> >> > On Mar 6, 2016 1:00 PM, "Baron, Dennis E" <debaron at illinois.edu> wrote:
> >> >>=20
> >> >>=20
> >> > TGFycnksDQoNClJlOiBCcCBMb3d0aDogWW91ciBjb21tZW50IHByb21wdGVkIG1lIHRvIGxvb=
> >> 2sg
> >> >>=20
> >> > bW9yZSBjbG9zZWx5IGF0IHRoZSB3b3JrSS4gTG93dGggZG9lcyB1c2UgdGhhdCBkb3VibGUgb=
> >> mVn
> >> >>=20
> >> > YXRpdmUgY29tbWVudCBpbiB0aGUgMTc2MyBlZGl0aW9uLCBwLiAxMzkuIEl0IGRvZXMgbm90I=
> >> GFw
> >> >>=20
> >> > cGVhciBpbiB0aGUgZmlyc3QgZWQuLCAxNzYyLiBJIHRvbyBoYXZlIHNlZW4gdGhvc2UgbWFue=
> >> SBx
> >> >>=20
> >> > ...
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>
> >
> > --
> > David Champion • dgc at bikeshed.us
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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