< P.S., Yes indeed I had LC_COLLATE=C so maybe --debug should mention < where in the environment it made it choices from too.
Ah, like you said $ LC_ALL=en_CA.UTF-8 sort --debug < /dev/null sort: using ‘en_CA.UTF-8’ sorting rules $ LC_ALL=C sort --debug < /dev/null sort: using simple byte comparison So the last line should be sort: using 'C' sorting rules (simple byte comparison) or maybe also say "effective LC_COLLATE value is ...."..