h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sorry for my ignorance, but what do the alt key codes mean or stand for? A girl sent me the following email and I can't make heads or tails of it.........all of the symbols are here in your alt key codes section, but I haven't a clue if they even mean anything.Thanks for any help you can' give me.



You are correct and right. very right.  I did not even try. and that is boring personified.  At that exact moment in time I felt that this:   õîðîøèå âåùè ïðèõîäÿò ê òåì æäóò !! was way beyond where my scope of intelligence could take me.  Rather that "admit" that,  I opted to feign boredom.     Silly me.  I should have known better.     >>(I find it most intriguing to "meet" someone who appears to derive pleasure from challenging me......... and yet I still don't even know what you look like.)>>  hmmmmm  Â
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By the way, in that last "phrase",   Вы забыли слово те
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and, I am Anything but bored.................   Or boring
RJ,  You perhaps have "me" Just where you want me..............
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Sorry for the over-a-year wait for a reply, I've been away. But I'm back now, at least briefly.

Erm, the Alt codes are a way to enter some of these non-standard (for UK English) characters (on a PC anyway, we're now a Mac household and I haven't worked it out for them yet) .

You hold down the Alt key, type the 3 or 4 digits as per the list then release the Alt key and the character appears. That's the theory anyway, it can vary depending on what software you're in when doing it.

As for your mystery email, looks like it's been through a series of 2 or more email or text editors that have different ways of interpreting the same codes (which lie behind every character including those we type 'normally') and therefore has given rise to confusion. Often this happens between Alt codes that do and don't begin with a zero (i.e. 3 and 4 digit codes).

This explanation is probably more unhelpful than otherwise but I suggest if you are still in touch with the person who emailed, you forward it back to them and ask if the odd characters were original. I suspect that you may have done something like this or found a similar/better explanation in the last year, but just in case, this is my !

rt