# \<\<j Makes Jewish smiley but retains both "\<\<" marks

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [August 27, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874 "2003-08-27T01:37:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/1 "2003-08-27T01:37:19Z")

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;j == Jewish Smiley

\<\<j == Jewish Smiley

Now that’s odd.

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**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/2 "2003-08-27T08:13:51Z")

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\<\<j

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**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/3 "2003-08-27T08:15:05Z")

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Yes it does.

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**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/4 "2003-08-27T08:17:08Z")

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\<\<D

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**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/5 "2003-08-27T08:18:09Z")

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Well, that didn’t work. I guess its just the Jewish smiley.

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**Author:** ![green\_bladder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@green\_bladder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/green_bladder)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/6 "2003-08-27T10:56:31Z")

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\<j

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**Author:** ![green\_bladder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@green\_bladder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/green_bladder)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/7 "2003-08-27T10:57:40Z")

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Hmm… so this makes one as well: \<j

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**Author:** ![green\_bladder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@green\_bladder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/green_bladder)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/8 "2003-08-27T10:59:28Z")

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\>j

Well, both **\<** and **\>** work.

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/9 "2003-08-27T16:49:08Z")

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Used to be that the same bug would produce a wink, as well, but the programers put in a workaround for that one in the latest version. But Winky is standard, while Happy Orthodox Jew is specific to the SDMB only, so they didn’t think to fix it there.

What’s happening, is the \< is turning into the HTML escape sequence &\*\*\*\*nblt; , so \<\*\*\*\*j turns into &\*\*\*\*nblt;\*\*\*\*j. The vBulletin software sees the ; **j and turns that into ;j , leaving &nblt;j, and on most browsers, the escape sequence will display the character even without the semicolon on the end, so you’re left with \<** ;j.

This should work with any character which is represented by an escape sequence, including \< \> and & .

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**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\
**Post date:** [August 27, 2003, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/10 "2003-08-27T18:16:21Z")

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Huh. Learn something new every day.

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**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/j-makes-jewish-smiley-but-retains-both-marks/197874/11 "2003-08-28T00:51:30Z")

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&j

That was ampersand plus j – which on the above should produce an ampersand and the Jewish smiley.