Re: OT: The joys of email (was: Re: CONLANG/ZBB crossover)

On 5/9/07, Dana Nutter <dana.nutter@...> wrote:
> > [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Mark J. Reed
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 11:26
> > To: CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu
> > Subject: Re: OT: The joys of email (was: Re: CONLANG/ZBB crossover)
> >
> > Oh, yes.  many people think that RE: is short for REPLY or something,
> > but it's actually from Latin RES ("thing").  It was originally the
> > office-memo's equivalent of what in email is the Subject: header...
> > what the memo is about, whether it's a reply or not.
>
> For e-mail it is "reply", as opposed to "FWD" which is used for "forward". On
> letters, "RE:" is supposed to be "regarding".
I believe those are both back-interpretations, and that the original
meaning was what Mark said.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

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