Note: for support questions, please use one of these channels: https://github.com/angular/angular.js/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#question. This repository's issues are reserved for feature requests and bug reports.

Do you want to request a feature or report a bug?

Neither.

What is the current behavior?

Browser sniff for IE 11 is used instead of a feature test.

// Support: IE 11 only
// Workaround for #11781 and #14924
if (msie === 11) {
    mergeConsecutiveTextNodes(nodeList, i, notLiveList);
}

Direct test would be something like this:

var el = document.createElement('span');
document.body.appendChild(el);
span.innerHTML = "— {{ 'foo' }}";
var problemWithSplitTextNodes = span.childNodes.length > 1;
document.body.removeChild(el);

Do that once during initialization (or first time through).

Would fix in all browsers (including future browsers) and configurations that may exhibit this quirk (would have to check the specs to determine if it is at odds with standard recommendations).