in reply to Deleting an Odd Filename

I'm inferring (from the examples) you're attempting to use the system built-in.

As it's just a one-off, why not drop into the shell (it _is_ allowed ;-) and since I'll bet you've only one file whose name starts with the string popdatck, try rm popdtack*

Either way, AFAICT, (one of the) the problems with both attempts is that there is a space you appear to have omitted to escape e.g. 

'rm popdatck \. \$dept'

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should read 
'rm popdatck\ \. \$dept'

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...or, you could just let the shell do the work and use tab completion...

Update

Added tab completion - thanx to jethro for the singularly timely reminder

A user level that continues to overstate my experience :-))

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Re^2: Deleting an Odd Filename
by Anonymous Monk on Jun 01, 2009 at 10:11 UTC
    Or you can quote rm 'popdatck . $dept'
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      That would be the most natural solution, IMHO (when using the shell).  Like Perl, most Unix shells interpolate variables ($dept) in double-quoted strings, while leaving them alone when single quotes are being used.

      The only case I'm aware of where this doesn't work (except when having single quotes in the name itself) is when you have a leading dash in the file name, like '-foo': 

      $ rm '-foo'
rm: invalid option -- o
Try `rm ./-foo' to remove the file `-foo'.
Try `rm --help' for more information.

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      But, as you can see, rm is being helpful (at least some versions of it on Linux) by suggesting the workaround for this special case, i.e. rm ./-foo

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