Stefan Sczekalla-Waldschmidt wrote:

> I was told by a member of the piclist that in all messages he gets
> from me via the piclist the quotation mark in e.g. it's or don't
> are printed as "4" ( it4s or don4t ).

> I'm using a german NT4 with an english Netscape 4.50. When I replied
> to the member via private mail he saw the quotation marks correct.

  Well, itâs a funny thing.  I seem to have the same trouble when I send
from my German keyboard - *some* things come out wrong as you specify.

  I most certainly received your posting, via the list, correctly as I
presume you typed it, and the second as well.

  The GR keyboard of course, gives a (back-)quote as the default action
of the "single-accent" key (above/right to †).  In DOS (including a DOS
window), pressing anything but a vowel or space gives the error beep,
the quote and the consonant etc.  Windoze doesn't beep.

  It appears the character generated (in Windoze mode) is a Unicode
version of the character (Alt-0146 = "â" not "'") and similarly,
Alt-0145 = "Î" not "`" for the back-quote.  Those who see this as I
typed it will see no less than *four* different single quote characters!
Presumably the listserver treats this by re-encoding it into 8-bit in a
fashion that is then truncated to 7-bit by your mail browser.

  OK, this is a bit hairy but - I can read your messages via the list
fine at this point, but I gather you sent with the US keyboard this
time.

  There's also two commata; "," and "­"!
-- 
  Cheers,
        Paul B.