bug#4006: 23.1.50; safe-local-variable-values

[Chong Yidong]

> My customisation contains since some days also an entry for an ispell
> dictionary (before it consisted of (AUC)TeX-command-default names).
> It was added by GNU Emacs by pressing ! to answer this question:
>
>       The local variables list in Beispiel.tex
>       contains values that may not be safe (*).
>
>       Do you want to apply it?  You can type
>       y  -- to apply the local variables list.
>       n  -- to ignore the local variables list.
>       !  -- to apply the local variables list, and permanently mark these
>
>             values (*) as safe (in the future, they will be set
>             automatically.)
>
>         * ispell-dictionary : "english"
>           mode : latex
>           TeX-master : t
>           TeX-command-default : "XeLaTeXx"

>From "Specifying File Variables" in the Emacs manual:

   If `mode' is used to set a major mode, it should be the first
   "variable" in the list.  Otherwise, the entries that precede it will
   usually have no effect, since most major modes kill all local
   variables as part of their initialization.

That the problem you're seeing.

There is another bug entry in that database about adding a warning for
this kind of situation (Bug#5239).