[Evolution] use of contacts in Evolution 1.2.2-4

[me <buzdavis earthlink net>]

Hi - I am new to Evolution, running the version of that came on
the Red Hat 9 CD's.  All seems to work except using contacts
for email addresses.  As long as I type the address myself
things work.  If I attempt to enter a nickname in the address
field the program does seem to pull the email address out of the
contacts list, but then on attempting to send it the program generates
an error:

   Error while performing operation
   RCPT to <nickname> failed:  Syntax error in parameters or arguments

At first I thought perhaps something had failed on importing the
addresses, but the same thing happens if I manually create a contact and
attempt to use the address.

When I look at the result in the out box the email address seems to be
properly placed, (it is underlined - I don't know if this is
significant).  I haven't found anything about this in the help files.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.