title: Python encoding/decoding problems
body: <p>How do I decode strings such as this one "weren\xe2\x80\x99t" back to the normal encoding.</p>
  
  <p>So this word is actually weren't and not "weren\xe2\x80\x99t"? 
      For example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>print "\xe2\x80\x9cThings"
  string = "\xe2\x80\x9cThings"
  print string.decode('utf-8')
  print string.encode('ascii', 'ignore')
  
  â€œThings
  “Things
  Things
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But I actually want to get "Things.</p>
  
  <p>or:</p>
  
  <pre><code>print "weren\xe2\x80\x99t"
  string = "weren\xe2\x80\x99t"
  print string.decode('utf-8')
  print string.encode('ascii', 'ignore')
  
  werenâ€™t
  weren’t
  werent
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But I actually want to get weren't.</p>
  
  <p>How should i do this?</p>