Somehow I managed to screw up my shell-encoding. An example:
root§server:ç£ cat --help
Usage: cat ¡OPTION¿... ¡FILE¿...
Concatenate FILE(s), or standard 
input, to standard output.
  -A, --show-all           equivalent to -vET
  -b, --number-nonblank    number nonempty output lines
  -e                       equivalent to -vE
  -E, --show-ends          display $ at end of each line
  -n, --number             number all output lines
  -s, --squeeze-blank      suppress repeated empty output lines
  -t                       equivalent to -vT
  -T, --show-tabs          display TAB characters as ^I
  -u                       (ignored)
  -v, --show-nonprinting   use ^ and M- notation, except for LFD and TAB
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit
With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard 
input.
Examples:
  cat f - g  Output f's contents, then standard 
input, then g's contents.
  cat        Copy standard 
input to standard output.
Report cat bugs to bug-coreutils§gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
For complete documentation, run: info coreutils 'cat invocation'
root§server:ç£ 
It should look like:
root@server:~# cat --help
Usage: cat [OPTION]... [FILE]...
Concatenate FILE(s), or standard 
input, to standard output.
  -A, --show-all           equivalent to -vET
  -b, --number-nonblank    number nonempty output lines
  -e                       equivalent to -vE
  -E, --show-ends          display $ at end of each line
  -n, --number             number all output lines
  -s, --squeeze-blank      suppress repeated empty output lines
  -t                       equivalent to -vT
  -T, --show-tabs          display TAB characters as ^I
  -u                       (ignored)
  -v, --show-nonprinting   use ^ and M- notation, except for LFD and TAB
      --help     display this help and exit
      --version  output version information and exit
With no FILE, or when FILE is -, read standard 
input.
Examples:
  cat f - g  Output f's contents, then standard 
input, then g's contents.
  cat        Copy standard 
input to standard output.
Report cat bugs to 
[email protected]
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
For complete documentation, run: info coreutils 'cat invocation'
root@server:~# 
I have no clue what went wrong, do you have any ideas?