This issue (characters like  in posts) affected one of my WordPress blogs for about a year and a half. Converting the database entirely to UTF-8 didn’t help. Changing settings, collations, and waving chicken legs over my keyboard didn’t help. Turns out a plugin was the culprit: Textile 2 (Improved), version 2.1.
Once I disabled this plugin, the strange characters disappeared.
OHH, it’s because you used the legs instead of the wishbone.
Comment by Forest Monsen — December 14, 2009 @ 2:24 pm PST