From: "B. T. Raven" <btraven@nihilo.net>
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:17:18 -0500
Why aren't the following exactly synonymous (as the descriptions would
lead us to believe):
C-x RET c latin-1 RET C-x C-f
C-x RET f latin-1 RET
The second one changes how the buffer will be _encoded_ when saved to
disk next time you type "C-x C-s". The former one changes how the
file will be _decoded_ when you visit it. IOW, the second one can
change nothing in how Emacs interprets the file while reading it into
the buffer.