[phaemon]

No it's not. If you type

    mkdir ..<space>

it tells you "cannot create directory". You have to explicitly tell it you want a space in by using quotes (as you well know).

Oh, and it's my computer. I don't want my shell telling me what I'm "allowed" to do. If I explicitly tell it to do something, it should damn well do it!

[harrytuttle]

What if you do the following?

    VARX=".. " # by accident as the result of a command
    mkdir $VARX