locale-specific sort algorithms undocumented?

In the course of creating a new PG 7.4.3 server, I chose UTF-8 as my
locale. I now find that sorting is very different with that setting: It
appears, through trial and error, that all non-alphanumeric characters
are completely ignored by ORDER BY. Thus, traditional tricks like
prefixing a name with a leading space to force it to the head of an
alphabetized list don't work anymore. This is unexpected and undesired,
but curiously, I can't find a word written anywhere that defines the
sort process for various locale settings. Can anyone point me to any
documentation on this?

Second, can anyone offer any positive or negative implications of
choosing a non-default locale (for English language databases)? I chose
UTF because I perceive it as more of a standard encoding approach, but
I'll have to reinit the server with a diffeent setting if I can't
control its predilection to ignoring non-alphanumerics.

Thanks for sharing any insights.

John Gunther
Bucks vs Bytes Inc

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