Why is the sort-test ignoring ':', '(' and ';' and trailing space

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[Petter Reinholdtsen, 2003-07-06]
> I just discovered that the current sort test is ignoring the three
> characters ':', '(' and ';', and is skipping trailing whitespace.  Why
> is this?

I got no reply to this one, so I assume there is no good reason for
it.  Unless someone come up with a good explanation soon, I'll prepare
and submit patches to modify the sort tests, and the sort test data
that need to change because of this.