Humm....? Seems pretty clear to me.
re (rę) preposition In reference to; in the case of; concerning.
[Latin rę, ablative of ręs, thing.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.
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Keith Whaley wrote:
Stan Halpin wrote:
Bob, On this side of the pond, using what is oxymoronically known as American English, there is a businesspersons' phrase which is used as follows: "Dear Mr. Jones: In re: your letter of the 5th,..." with the apparent presumption being that 're' is short for 'reference'. I have never seen/heard 'in re to...' which you might expect if 're' were taken to be short for 'reply'.
Could it be that 're:' is in fact proper usage, that it is a shorthand reference to 'reference'?
Stan
Hi Stan,
"Re" is a preposition, just as "to," "from" and "with" are. Which is to say, it's a stand-alone word, not an abbreviation. It means "concerning," "in reference to" or "in the case of." It comes from (is an ablative of) the Latin word "res" which means "thing."
With regard to usage, would you put a colon after "concerning?" I wouldn't, but that does seem to be how common usage has presented it...
Since it is a preposition, I'd use it bare, as it was originally intended: "Re your letter of the 5th..." No colon.
FWIW... keith whaley
On Jul 21, 2004, at 2:10 AM, Bob W wrote:
Hi,
Nice post Lasse. AW means "AntWort" in German, same as RE: .
<schoolmasterish pendantry>
well, not quite. 're' is Latin for 'about' and is a complete word in its own right. It is not short for 'reply', as some people think.
Placing 're' in the subject line for replies is an unfortunate grammatical error that has been cast in digital concrete.
</schoolmasterish pedantry>
-- Cheers, Bob
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com/graywolf.html
