How to convert unicode accented characters to pure ascii without accents?

Question

I\'m trying to download some content from a dictionary site like http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apple?s=t

The problem I\'m having is that the original paragr

Answer 1

The given URL returns UTF-8 as the HTTP response clearly indicates:

wget -S http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apple?s=t
--2013-01-02 08:43:40--  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apple?s=t
Resolving dictionary.reference.com (dictionary.reference.com)... 23.14.94.26, 23.14.94.11
Connecting to dictionary.reference.com (dictionary.reference.com)|23.14.94.26|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 
  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Server: Apache
  Cache-Control: private
  Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
  Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2013 07:43:40 GMT
  Transfer-Encoding:  chunked
  Connection: keep-alive
  Connection: Transfer-Encoding
  Set-Cookie: sid=UOPlLC7t-zl20-k7; Domain=reference.com; Expires=Wed, 02-Jan-2013 08:13:40 GMT; Path=/
  Set-Cookie: cu.wz=0; Domain=.reference.com; Expires=Thu, 02-Jan-2014 07:43:40 GMT; Path=/
  Set-Cookie: recsrch=apple; Domain=reference.com; Expires=Tue, 02-Apr-2013 07:43:40 GMT; Path=/
  Set-Cookie: dcc=*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~; Domain=reference.com; Expires=Thu, 02-Jan-2014 07:43:40 GMT; Path=/
  Set-Cookie: iv_dic=1-0; Domain=reference.com; Expires=Thu, 03-Jan-2013 07:43:40 GMT; Path=/
  Set-Cookie: accepting=1; Domain=.reference.com; Expires=Thu, 02-Jan-2014 07:43:40 GMT; Path=/
  Set-Cookie: bid=UOPlLC7t-zlrHXne; Domain=reference.com; Expires=Fri, 02-Jan-2015 07:43:40 GMT; Path=/
Length: unspecified [text/html]

Investigating the saved file using vim also reveals that the data is correctly utf-8 encoded...the same is true fetching the URL using Python.