The umlauts in the band name "Mötley Crüe" are decorative, yet the difference between "Mötley Crüe" and "Motley Crue" is one of spelling. Although the tilde in the place name "Rancho Peñasquitos" is *not* decorative, "Rancho Peñasquitos" vs. "Rancho Penasquitos" is still a spelling difference.
Dingbats are both decorative and representable in computer plain text. (✤✥✦✼✽✾)
Conventions exist in computer plain text for distinguishing *bold* and /italic/ text strings, why not a convention for abbreviation superscripts & squiggles? (At least until something better comes along, such as a direct encoding along the lines of Philippe Verdy's earlier suggestion.)
"M=ͬ" might render properly (or not, Notepad using Lucida Console fails here), but it wouldn't easily accommodate needed superscripted Latin small diacriticized letters.
"Mr͇" for display purposes may look as daft as "/italics/", but it captures the elements of the text of the original manuscript. And it would allow preservation of abbreviations such as for "constitutionalité" → "Ct͇é͇".
If "Mccoy" vs. "McCoy" vs. "MCCOY" vs. "MC COY" represent spelling differences, then so do "McCoy" vs "MᶜCoy". It's a matter of opinion, and opinions often differ.
