I take it all back. I used to say that there were no stupid questions, only stupid answers, but this anonymonk has proven me wrong.

Not really. I could see myself 10 years ago thinking that there were different kinds of letters...bold letters, letters in Helvetica, letters in 20 pt font. In some sense, this is true: your computer has to display different characters depending on what formatting information is attached to them, even if the underlying character is still just a 'b'. I realize that you were just kidding, but I think that we have a duty to inform our undercover brother on how things work in a way that makes him want to ask more questions.