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.