parse error in my-hacks.php

yes, i am using <?php…
i’ll think about upgrading, but i guess i will wait until the official version…

for example the recent comments hack:
function get_recent_comments($no_comments = 5, $comment_lenth = 5, $before = ‘

• ‘, $after = ‘

‘, $show_pass_post = false) {
global $wpdb, $tablecomments, $tableposts;
$request = “SELECT ID, comment_ID, comment_content, comment_author FROM $tableposts, $tablecomments WHERE $tableposts.ID=$tablecomments.comment_post_ID AND post_status = ‘publish’ “;
if(!$show_pass_post) { $request .= “AND post_password =” “; }
$request .= “AND comment_approved = ‘1’ ORDER BY $tablecomments.comment_date DESC LIMIT $no_comments”;
$comments = $wpdb->get_results($request);
$output = ”;
foreach ($comments as $comment) {
$comment_author = stripslashes($comment->comment_author);
$comment_content = strip_tags($comment->comment_content);
$comment_content = stripslashes($comment_content);
$words=split(” “,$comment_content);
$comment_excerpt = join(” “,array_slice($words,0,$comment_lenth));
$permalink = get_permalink($comment->ID).”#comment-“.$comment->comment_ID;
$output .= $before . ‘‘ . $comment_author . ‘:
$output .= ‘” title=”View the entire comment by ‘ . $comment_author.'”>’ . $comment_excerpt . ‘…‘ . $after;
}
echo $output;
}
parse error in line 2 (or 3 if i leave the second line blank..)