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pallette subscript confusion



I'm confused about how pallette subscripts work. In the following, "sub"
means use the pallette to enter a subscript. The BOOK suggests that
x"sub"0 is treated as a "purely symbolic object," (p. 176) but the
following behavior suggests that this is not true.

If I enter 

x"sub"0 = a"sub"0 b"sub"0

Mathematica returns

a"sub"0 b"sub"0.

If I next enter

x = a b,

Mathematica returns

a b

If I now enter

x"sub"0

Mathematica returns

(a b)"sub"0

I understand that Mathematica is evaluating x before applying the
subscript. I think this is very undesirable.

How do I tell Mathematica to leave x"sub"0 as a plain old symbol, such
that entering

x"sub"0

still returns

a"sub"0 b"sub"0?

I'm hoping that the answer doesn't involve a bunch of
Unprotect[Subscript],HoldAll[] blah blah blah junk. I'm using Windows
NT version 3.01.1x.



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