are you pasting from another source. like word?

No. Typing it in.

This only started within the last few days. I didn't use the computer for a few days, then this was going on the next time I sent out a message.

It doesn't happen with every message. Looking back at saved bcc's of my msgs, I sent two messages a minute apart on February 3; the first one had the garbage, the second one was fine. Some that I sent on February 5 had it; some didn't.

It only happens within a paragraph. So, if I was sending this out instead of posting it in the forum, it would happen after "last few days." and "every message." and "was fine.", but not after "next time I sent out a message." and "some didn't."

BTW, before posting the problem, I checked to see whether it's up to date; it is. (It's set to update automatically)

have a look at the character set on the emails This will require you opening the mail source (ctrl+U) and looking for occurrences of charset= this is normally utf-8 I expect your to be something else.

Where are you as far as language is concerned? US France, Singapore Japan etc.

And the way to have a look at the character set would be ......?

When you say "opening the mail source," are you saying to look at something in the e-mails I sent that had the garbage versus the ones I sent a minute later that didn't have the garbage?

I'm in the US. Just a user; not an expert who knows all the jargon.