magic! this does the trick: expression(paste(italic(n)[symbol("\052")]))
thanks for the hint, ted! -- Andrew B. Collier Physicist Waves and Space Plasmas Group Hermanus Magnetic Observatory Honorary Senior Lecturer tel: +27 31 2601157 Space Physics Research Institute fax: +27 31 2607795 University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa gsm: +27 83 3813655 ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.