Why does $_ in $MAILPATH work weirdly?

[Gary W. Swearingen]

张森 <sen.zhang at gmail.com> writes:

> // btw, why would some manuals would prefer to use the Unicode quote character? It really sucks.

I'll guess some doc authors have chosen to exert some control over the
appearance of thier work by choice of characters (generally a bad
practice, but...), since they have no control over the choice of
fonts.  I'm no expert, but IIRC, a real single-byte apostrophe is
*supposed* to be rendered as a vertical, left-right-symmetrical tic
(mark).  A shell man page author, especially, might prefer a character
that looks like a real (right-leaning) apostrophe instead of the
vertical mark that is more easily confused with a real (left-leaning)
back tic.  IIRC, there are two so-called apostrophe's in Unicode and
the ASCII one is one by name only.