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

 On 5/9/07, Dana Nutter <dana.nutter@...> wrote:
> For e-mail it is "reply", as opposed to "FWD" which is used for "forward". On
> letters, "RE:" is supposed to be "regarding".
Your first use comes from your second.  You send me a message about
dinner, and I reply to it - my message is thus regarding dinner.
Further, in the second sense, "re" is not short for "regarding", but
from the Latin phrase "in re", where "re" is the ablative case of
"res".  "Regarding" is a convenient mnemonic, of course.

Office memoranda have very short headings; the two-letter RE was very
convenient for them.  But technology has obviated the need to type the
headings out manually (or try to line up a preprinted form in a
typewriter), so many modern writing courses teach the students to use
"SUBJECT" instead.


--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>