These effects are only observed in IE8 and maybe other IEs, but not Firefox

Try typing "ctrl-a" and "ctrl-o" in the textareas below.

In the first box, IE's normal behavior ('select all' and 'file->open') work normally

In the second and third boxes, the normal behavior is supressed, and those key combinations
yield a lowercase "a" with an acute accent and a lowercase "o" with an acute accent.

The weirdness is that in the second box, although 'select all' is successfully repressed
for ctrl-a, this is not the case for ctrl-o, which does produce the special character, but
also triggers its normal 'file->open' behavior.

In the third box, adding alerts to the event handler somehow changes the behavior.
Ctrl-o yields an 'o' with an accent after the first alert is dismissed. 'file->open' is not triggered,
but then an ordinary 'o' is added after the second alert is dismissed.

Here ctrl-a and ctrl-o both work normally.
Here ctrl-a yields an 'a' with an accent mark. Ctrl-o yields an o with an accent mark, but also triggers 'file->open'
Here ctrl-a yields an 'a' with an accent mark. Ctrl-o yields an o with an accent mark and triggers two alerts. 'file->open' is not triggered, but an ordinary 'o' is then added.