Minor crimes against literacy

[fivemack]

eBay, understandably, does not want people to be able to implant nasties, Javascript or otherwise, in messages sent between their users.

One of the ways they do this is by preventing the use of HTML, asterisks or quotes in the messages.

By which they mean, ASCII characters 0x22 and 0x27 are forbidden.

This means that one is obliged to write in the manner of a rather stilted Victorian, the apostrophe being disallowed. And apostrophes are surprisingly hard to see among text; I had to read the message I was sending three or four times to get in the full quota of it has, I am, you are.

Comments

[freelancepedant.livejournal.com]

This is sending messages to other ebay users? It allows me to use apostrophes - I've just sent one containing a few and it went fine. No double quotes though.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I may be unsure as to which bit of ebay I was using; I'd been hit by a timewaster bidding £50 for an ancient digital camera and then getting kicked off ebay, I pressed the 'second-choice offer' button, and I think that relisted the camera rather than, as I'd expect, emailing the other bidder.