Why are apostrophes replaced with "'"?

[psklenar]

I don't see it when I write and send am email from the Nexus, nor do I see it when I send myself emails & look at them in my desktop email client (Thunderbird) and via the one web email acct i have (live.com), but I've had multiple friends & family ask me why I'm typing things like

I'm

I'll

Barry's

etc, etc, etc.

' is the HTML take for an apostrophe, but why are only some of my friends and family seeing this and not everyone?  Is there a setting in the stock email client that I can set to not default to HTML email?  or ... ?

Thank  you,

pat----

[Wildman]

This is because if the word you are typing isnt in the keyboards dictionary, usually if you clear the dictionary words through Settings / Keyboard options and then add the word to the dictionary.

[psklenar]

actually, "I'll" and "I'm"  are in the dictionary.  so i think there's something else at play here.

But thanks for the quick responce!

pat----

[Wildman]

Have you tried another keyboard like Smart Keyboard....    https://market.android.com/details?id=net.cdeguet.smartkeyboardtrial&feature=search_result#?t=W251bG...

Maybe it will work better under the situation...

[rfeng]

I have the same issue.  One guy @ verizon suggested I go to my signature for my emails and remove any symbols from it.  That means apostrophes, dash symbols, commas, periods.  whatever is in there that is a symbol.  I didn't have a way to test to see if that worked or not.  It comes up random.  Seems to happen whenever I send an email with an apostrophe in it to someone.  I'm, don't, I'd, it's, they've, so on and so forth.  I'm a little frustrated that I can't get any good answers.

[Wildman]

Are they viewing the messages in a browser or something that would you the HTML format?   When you look at your message does it show correctly?  If so then I wouldn't blame the device as the issue...

[rfeng]

I don't know what their settings are but its on their phones and sometimes on their pc's through email such as outlook.  When I look at it....it is correct.  I didn't quite understand the HTML format sentence.....could you reiterate that portion please?  Thanks.

[Wildman]

It's misinterpreted code for an apostrophe.

To get technical: it works in XML, but not in HTML (two different codings used for web pages) and people often use it mistakenly, not realising that it won't display properly.

Sources:

See The Curse of ' http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2003/07/01/…

[rfeng]

Ok.  I can comprehend that.  However how can it be corrected?  My contention is....it shouldn't be doing that.  No matter what the reason.  However, I am open minded to a fix.  Is there one?

Thanks.

[Wildman]

OK, have you check the original message that was sent from your device and make sure their isn't a typo in the actual email, if for some reason a incorrect word was input in a area and saved to the dictionary the keyboard would attempt to force the text in a message and you may overlooked it?   Also trying another keyboard for a bit and see if issue continues..

If all information is inputted correct then it would have to be changed in transit and I am not sure what could be done from any users from this forum.  CS or a admin would most likely have to investigate further.

[rfeng]

negative.  I verified all of that before I made my first call to verizon to correct the issue.

[Wildman]

If you want to isolate the device as the issue you could consider a hard reset to verify that no app or setting could be causing the issue.

Another thing to look into is the contacts information and make sure that you haven't accidentally sent the emails through the website messaging system instead of the SMS, MMS service...  At the out going information for the individuals that had the issue shows the phone number as the sent to field and not the number @the carrier name.com

@psklenar

That is a possibility that I did not consider, you may be correct on that one..  In that case maybe trying K9 may help...  

By the way are the ones with issues on the same network by chance, if so then it could be a network issue on their end instead of yours?

[rfeng]

Wildman,

no accidents.  I'm rather particular. I detect an issue I get more detailed in watching what I do. 

[Wildman]

OK..  Well I am out of options, maybe someone else ran into this situation that found a solution but until now I haven't seen a solution being reported about this..

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=16873

Hope a solution gets found because I know that issue could be a but irritating..

[rfeng]

Some of those ppl make good complaint.  I am in business too and it got brought to my attention from another company that I had sent an email to.  Made me look like I was careless with my typing.

[Wildman]

The issue is that even in that post the nature of issue wasnt identified for sure but it really is looking like a Android OS not a network issue..

[psklenar]

rfeng,

one of my friends contacted me because she was concerned that maybe i was having a stroke when she saw the first couple of emails with the "'"!

pat----

[psklenar]

Wildman,

I suspect the issue is with the Android v4 stock email client or stock keyboard, not with the Galaxy Nexus as a device.  I've posted queries on the Google Android forums and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus Help site, but haven't had any replies from either site yet.

I haven't tried a different email client (K9 Mail perhaps?) or keyboard yet.  Hopefully I'll have some time to test this weekend, but as rfeng also stated, the problem does NOT seem to be constant.  When I look in my SENT folder (via the phone or my home PC), my emails look fine.  but I have a couple friends who report that apostrophes are often, altho not always, replaced with the string '.  I know it's an HTML tag, I wasn't aware it's also an XML tag.  I also have other friends who've not mentioned any problems at all.

One of the ones who has a problem has a Hotmail acct and checks her email only through her IE web browser.  I created my own hotmail acct and sent myself a test email and didn't see any string substitution.  The other one who's told me of this issue uses both MS Outlook and the Yahoo web interface for her emails and reports seeing the behavior in both.  Both friends have included my emails in their replies and sure enough, all apostrophes are replaced with ' ...  yet when I look at my SENT folder ... ?

I posted here in hopes of finding someone else with the problem and maybe figuring out a common factor.  I hope to hear from the Google Android folks eventually.  But in the short term, I was also hoing that maybe someone knew of a way to configure the email client to send non-HTML (or maybe non-XML?) emails, because I've not figured out how to do that myself yet.

Thank you,

pat----

[rfeng]

Pat,

So far you have given the most logical explanation I have heard so far.  Even though its not the end run for an answer I think you are on the right track.  The thing I noticed right off with Galaxy Nexus is that there aren't very many controls to the stock email installed on it.  My other issue is no thread in the emails that I send out.  I was wondering if anyone else has experienced that also.

[psklenar]

Wildman,

I've installed Handcent (initially for repeating & customizable SMS notifications) and haven't had any reports of the string substitution from anyone I've sent SMS messages to.  The problem appears to be only via the stock email client.

pat----

[Wildman]

Sounds like they have a programming Gremlin that they will have to fix with a update, hope that they can do this soon for you but glad to hear Handcent seems to be helping..