&.#8220; instead of a quotation mark

I guess links are not allowed because it deleted my link (I’m not sure why we have a link button). But I think you guys get the idea.

links are allowed. just enter the url and it will auto turn into a link

Here’s the problem.
https://varpness.com/archives/367

Hi

Here is the code that the browser is interpreting (from View Source):
<p><span class="drop">&</span>#8220;Did you ever notice how when you give yourself a paper cut on purpose, and then you squeeze a little lemon juice on the cut, it hurts really bad? Yeah, why do we do that to ourselves?” </p>

“ is the HTML entity code for the fancy left-side double quotes. Either you or your theme has applied a span class called Drop. Perhaps you are using a “drop” plugin that makes the first character large or specially formatted? At any rate is is being applied incorrectly. Go onto the HTML tab and put the #8220; next to the &inside the SPAN tag, and save. Everything will then be OK.

that was supposed to say that & # 8220 ; is the HMTL entity code for fancy left-side double quotes.

Thank you so much for your help stvwlf! I’m going to give it a shot right now!

This is the section with the drop information. For some reason it was “dropping” or making the first letter large on the first letter of the second paragraph, so I just used the /* tags to ignore the “.drop” which solves the issue of having it make the first letter of ever second paragraph big. But even if I keep the drop in there, it still does the 8220 thing. What am I missing here?

/* ———————————– post meta */
.meta{display:block;list-style-type:none;list-style-image:none;margin:20px 0;padding:5px 0;font-size:11px;}
.postspace{background:transparent;width:80%;height:32px;margin:0;padding:0;}
.rel{float:left;width:48%;margin:0;padding-right:20px;border-right:1px solid #333;}
.pro{float:right;width:44%;margin:0;padding:0;}
.drop{float:left;font:3.5em century gothic,tahoma;line-height:100%;margin:3px 8px 0 0;width:30px;text-align:center;}
.social{clear:both;height:24px;width:99%;padding:13px 0;font-size:11px;color:#666;}
.social a{color:#666;text-decoration:none;margin:0 13px 0 0;}
.social a:hover{color:#000;text-decoration:underline;margin:0 13px 0 0;}

Hi

It looks fine here. If you are still seeing it messed up, clear your cache and refresh your browser.

Actually, I sort of did a work around to the problem by having a line break at the beginning of the post. So actually it’s not fix, I just couldn’t figure it out so I cheated.

Hmm, it’s not just the quotes. Anything that is not a normal alpha-numeric in the second paragraph gets changed into something weird. For example, I have just a regular carriage return, and it puts these boxes in place. It only happens to whatever starts the second pargraph.

https://varpness.com/quotes-from-me-that-should-be-famous
This is where you can see the weird boxes.