Call me a pedant, but I did some more digging. The root word in latin is
"res"; "re" is the ablative (relational) form. The word itself means
"thing". The phrase "in re" means "in the matter of". Evidently the
legal beagles have been using the phrase "in re" for a long time.
RFC 2822 says "res". The word is correct, but the definition is slightly
incorrect. From 2822, section 3.6.5:
When used in a reply, the field body MAY start with the string
"Re: " (from the Latin "res", in the matter of) followed by the
contents of the "Subject:" field body of the original message.
Usefor says re is from "in re", then uses the same definition as above.
From section 5.4:
NOTE: "Re" is an abbreviation for the Latin "In re", meaning "in
the matter of", and not an abbreviation of "Reference" as is
sometimes erroneously supposed.
Note though, that re is NOT an abbreviation, but is just a shortend form.
A better description of "Re" would be:
"Re" is the ablative (relational) case for the latin word "res"
meaning "thing", often used in the phrase "in re", meaning "in the
matter of". It is not an abbreviation for "Reference", "Reply" or
"Response", as is sometimes erroneously supposed.
BTW, I'm leaning towards "Auto:" as the best prefix.
Tony Hansen
tony(_at_)att(_dot_)com
Charles Lindsey wrote:
In <A23DE7A325D23B49A76B54080E0BCB9E0BA2ED(_at_)kabul(_dot_)ad(_dot_)skymv(_dot_)com> "Dan
Kohn" <dan(_at_)dankohn(_dot_)com> writes:
I would instead recommend:
NOTE: The string "Re: " (from the Latin "res", in the matter of) in the
^^^
Actually, it it from the Latin "in re".
There are texts on this in both RFC 2822 and in the Usefor draft. These
might be useful here.