Re: sort -b also ignores tabs

[Alfred M\. Szmidt]

   The former could be interpreted as "a single blank", which could
   then map very easily onto "a single space" (since no other form of
   whitespace produces a single column's worth of change), but there
   is no such thing as "a single whitespace" in intuitive
   interpretation; "whitespace" is a collective noun.

I think we have different views on how we see this, blank to me means
a collection of things that are not visible on the monitor.  While
whitespace simply means something (a single char!) that is not visble.

   (May I also say, you have one of the stranger forms of quoting I've
   ever encountered.)

It is also one of the oldest forms of quoting, dating back to the
birth of email, and messging across machines. :-) Not many people use
this form, but it is what is used in the default GNU Emacs mail
reader, rmail; which I happen to use (and like very much, it handles
huge volumes of mail really well).