function normal_chars($string)
{
    $string = htmlentities($string, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
    $string = preg_replace('~&([a-z]{1,2})(acute|cedil|circ|grave|lig|orn|ring|slash|th|tilde|uml);~i', '$1', $string);
    $string = html_entity_decode($string, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');
    $string = preg_replace('/(\d+):(\d+)/i', "$1.$2", $string);            // "John 3:16" becomes "John 3.16"
    $string = preg_replace('/(\w+):(.*)/i', "$1 - $2", $string);           // "The Reckoning: Part 1" becomes The Reckoning - Part 1"
    $string = preg_replace(array('~[^0-9a-z \.\[\]\-\']~i'), '', $string); // [Square brackets] and - dashes - and 'single quotes' are now valid
    return $string;
}