Subject: RE: [xsl] what does "AW:" mean? (OT) From: "Lars Huttar" <lars_huttar@xxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 12:20:55 -0600 |
I wrote: > It's interesting, though, that the way Re: is used in email today, > it's associated strictly with replies; nobody uses "Re: ___" > when they first compose an email message. (In contrast to its > use in formal memos.) So its meaning in email is different from > its former meaning, and one could speculate that the change in > meaning was helped by the resemblance of "Re:" to "reply". > > Whoever was looking at the RFC regarding "Re:" before, did it say > for what purpose it might be used? Did it specify replies? To answer my own question, RFC 2822 says (as Dion Houston already noted in part), The "Subject:" field is the most common [of the three informational fields] and contains a short string identifying the topic of the message. 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. If this is done, only one instance of the literal string "Re: " ought to be used since USE OF OTHER STRINGS or more than one instance can lead to undesirable consequences. [emphasis mine. Take that, AW! :-)] So yes, RFC 2822 (April 2001) did specify using Re: for replies. Incidentally, the earlier RFC 822 (Aug. 13, 1982) did not say that explicitly, but contains an example where the Subject begins with "Re: " and there is an In-Reply-To field. OK, this is getting way off-topic. Lars XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
Current Thread |
---|
|
<- Previous | Index | Next -> |
---|---|---|
RE: [xsl] what does "AW:" mean?, Lars Huttar | Thread | RE: [xsl] what does "AW:" mean?, Wendell Piez |
RE: [xsl] Answers to review questio, Lars Huttar | Date | [xsl] where does one stick the doct, Kovach, Dave |
Month |