the strange output of textedit

Does anyone understand the output of textedit when it includes commas and semicolons?

I've got a textedit box with the text
To be or not to be, that is the question;

If I send its output to [print], I get
To be or not to be, that is the question ;
(Note the space inserted before the semicolon, but not before the comma)

If I send the output to another textedit box (after [route text]->[prepend set]) it copies perfectly, ie no space before the semicolon. (BUT: if I put a space before the semicolon in the original, it disappears in the second text box!)

If I send the output to [tosymbol @separator |], the punctuation disappears completely:
To|be|or|not|to|be|that|is|the|question

[zl nth 7]->[print] prints "be", but [zl nth 8]->[print] does not print at all
[zl nth 12]->[print] prints "question", but [zl nth 13]->[print] does not print at all

If I send the output to a [js] object, its anything() function receives both the comma and the semicolon as 0.

What's going on?

Here's a patch that demonstrates all this:

And here's the javascript for the [js reportargs] object (this didn't format right when I put it in backticks):

// posts the message passed to it, with arguments delimited by |

autowatch = 1;
inlets = 1;
outlets = 0;

function anything()
{
var output = messagename;
for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
output += "|" + arguments[i];
}
post(output); post();
}