pet peeve

[jwgh]

I dislike email programs that use something other than 'Re:' in the subject for replies. What, you have something against Latin?

These sorts of email programs get extra 'I'll see you in hell' points if they don't recognize their own stupid reply indicator, so that the dumbness multiplies as the conversation continues: 'Subject: Sv: Sv: Please use a less stupid email program'

That is all.

Comments

[pompe.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't know non-Scando versions used "Sv:".

[jwgh]

The company I work for has customers all over the world, so I think you're right. I also run into 'R: R: R:' but I'm not sure if that's associated with a particular nationality.

pet peeve

[notr.livejournal.com]

I dislike the convention of using "Re:" for replies at all, but it's far too late to resist it now. It teaches people a distorted meaning of the word "re" and a stupid habit of bad punctuation. It was explained to me by housemates 20-odd years ago as really being a corruption of the prefix "re-" and not the word "re" at all. At the time, non-PROFS e-mail within IBM typically used "Re:" instead of "Subject:" to identify subject lines, as typewritten memos had for many years, and it became sort of a badge of uncontamination by PROFS. "Subject:" took over in forum appends (TOOLSRUN's equivalent to newsgroup posts) as APPEND EXEC gained widespread use, and then became more common in non-PROFS mail.

Re: pet peeve

[jwgh]

I would have a hard time arguing that 'Re:' is a good idea, but software that pretends it doesn't exist is just silly.

[manfire.livejournal.com]

There are also the programs that write "RE:" in all caps and doesn't recognize the normal "Re:", while other programs don't recognize the all-caps "RE:", so the programs battle it out with each other as you end up with subject lines starting "RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: RE:"

Fans of the Billy Nayer Show

[notr.livejournal.com]

will hear your RE:petitive subject line as a tunelet with this text set to it: "Ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham," etc.

[paracelsvs.livejournal.com]

I am guessing here, but it seems quite likely to me that "Sv:" is generated by Swedish-language mail programs, where the translators have parsed the "Re:" as short for "Reply", which is then translated into "Svar" and shortened down to "Sv:".