Eric, one of the problems with using the backslash is that there's no
"standard" way of translating the ASCII backslash into an EBCDIC
character.  Some sites use x'E0', some use x'4A', our MVS site for
reasons no one understands uses x'CF'!  So that alone would make for
problems.
 
I don't understand, however, why you appear to have taken
 
 "James R. Gerland"
 
and decided to first "quote" (i.e., put a backslash in front of) the
original double quotes, then put on your own double quotes.  Why not
just leave the quoted string asis?  While your example is certainly
correct per se, I believe it is distinctly *incorrect* if the original
was already quoted, since it takes the original phrase, James R. Gerland,
which must be surrounded by double quotes in a header because of the period,
and then transforms it into the different phrase "James R. Gerland".
 
When I implemented my RFC822 address parser I chose to ignore the possibility
of RFC822-quoted strings (i.e., ones with backslashes in them) because
 
  a) the ASCII-EBCDIC translation problem is so intractable.
& b) in all the time I've looked at Internet mail, I've never seen one.
 
Other than that, I believe, my parser handles everything correctly.
If however, you are able to convince Alan to do anything (which I sincerely
doubt), let me know, since I have an obvious interest.
 
Richard