Hi, English isn’t my mother tongue so I was asking myself that question since I first encounted a w/… Back then I was like: “What tf does ‘w slash’ stand for?” And when I found out I was like “How, why, and is it any intuitive?” But I never dared to ask that until now

    • Taniwha420@lemmy.world
      0·
      1 year ago

      … I think it’s actually a Latin word, “re,”, meaning, “the matter (subject)” not an abbreviation at all.

      • user134450@feddit.deEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        yeah this is a real pet peeve of mine.

        In German many people, web mailers and also sometimes even email software use “AW:” (short for AntWort) instead of “Re:” and then some of them don’t even recognize the existence of a previous “AW:” or “Re:” giving you such wondrous email subjects as: “AW: Re: AW: Re: AW: AW: Re: AW: Re: really important subject” 🤦

        • Square Singer@feddit.de
          0·
          1 year ago

          Oh, that totally works with a single language too: “Re: Re: Re:…” or “AW: AW: AW:…” seen both of that often enough.

          • user134450@feddit.deEnglish
            0·
            1 year ago

            yes indeed. i keep being confused how email can still suck so much sometimes when it had decades to mature.

            • Square Singer@feddit.de
              0·
              1 year ago

              Massive amounts of federation ;)

              It’s really hard to get thousands of software development companies, hundreds of thousands of hosters and billions of users to unitedly go for a new thing.