Hello Simon! On Friday, November 22, 2002 at 2:47:14 PM you wrote:
> ??? I must have missed your reply Dierk ??? Sorry. Yes, can you post it > again please? Yes, "res" means literally "a thing". From your clear statement in this paragraph I am sure you are a Latin scholar with deep historic knowledge, so forgive my following correction. "Res" also stands for "being" or "phenomenon"; the term "republic" stems from the Latin expression "res publica" meaning literally "something concerning all people" (although those people actually were citizens, therefore not at all "all" people). For a very long time Latin has been the language of the literate people - they spoke it deep into the Middle Ages, sometimes even up to modern times, and they wrote in it. In *lettres* they used the used the ablative "re" to show right at the beginning what the following pamphlet was about. Thus it came into use in the sense of "concerning, regarding". It is pure coincidence that the prefix "re-" in the English word "reply" (borrowed from Latin) is spelled the same. Actually the term used by RITLabs "Subject" is a tell-tale sign for the original meaning of "re:" being a translation of "res". Even a most basic Latin dictionary like *Langenscheidts Taschenwörterbuch Lateinisch* gives a lot of meanings for "res" including the original "Schatz, Besitz" (treasure, property, possession). Thank you for your time. ((This is a re-post of my answer to a message by Thomas Fernandez, not being altered.)) -- Dierk Haasis The Bat 1.62/Beta6 on Windows XP 5.1 2600Service Pack 1 You can't talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand. (Carole King) ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.61 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
