technical digression, more properly belongs in Animal Safari, or German Loanwords, but.

I am having a very strange thing this a.m., strings of characters that occur between certain single chars, such as , , or () are disappearing -- not just blank filled, but gone! e.g., the following string (which I got by doing a cut and paste into the awad editor)
Helen and whoever else is at the top of the list with us, just keep making those home runs (is that what they do in baseball, it's a bit like rounders isn't it?)! (I'm probably towards the top of a few other disreputable lists too and I started off such a good girl!)
looks like this to me on the board
Helen and whoever else is at the top of the list with us, just keep making those home runs ()! (I'm probably towards the top of a few other disreputable lists too and I started off such a good girl!)

wdf?!

EDIT: I soon began to notice other strangeness, such as everyone's egregious (but italicized) title was missing. <lightbulb appears above ron's head> zoicks! it's italics that have vanished! time to reload... sam' ting... time to reboot. ureeka.