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
That's interesting. So which way does it go then? Did all subject lines
originally have a (visible) "Re:" at the beginning, or none?

John Vertical