"Re:" in other languages

In an email link with a pre-filled subject line, is "Re:"
international or are there country-specific variations?

Once upon a time *Guy Macon* wrote:

In an email link with a pre-filled subject line, is "Re:"
international or are there country-specific variations?

Re: is international in the sence that everybody understand the
meaning of it. Country specific variations can be found in at least
Outlook Express if it's a country specific (translated) version.

--
/Arne
Now killing all posts originating at GoogleGroups
Workaround: http://www.safalra.com/special/googlegroupsreply/
-------------------------------------------------------------

Guy Macon wrote:

In an email link with a pre-filled subject line, is "Re:"
international or are there country-specific variations?

The string "Re: ", with the space, is part of the protocol and must not
be localized. Microsoft has seriously broken this in many versions of
Outlook Express and Outlook, by misguided "localization" that breaks the
whole idea. That's why we _still_ see the absurd and disturbing mess
like "Re:VS:VS:Aw:Sv:Re" on Subject lines.

That was about E-mail, not HTML authoring for the WWW, which is the
topic of this group. You probably meant the use of <a
href="mailto:...">, where the safe approach is still to use an E-mail
address only in place of "...", with no "?" goodies. If you use the
extra goodies, it would be completely wrong to insert "Re:" or "Re: "
into the Subject line, since the message being generated would _not_ be
a response to an E-mail message (in the relevant sense).

On Mon, 3 Oct 2005, Guy Macon wrote:

In an email link with a pre-filled subject line, is "Re:"
international or are there country-specific variations?

"Re:" is explicitly mentioned in RFC 2822 as being the abbreviation to
use:
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html


If someone wants their email software to display some other language
variant, there is nothing stopping the authors of the email software
from writing their email client to have it *display* an appropriate
abbreviation for another language *in place of* "Re:" but, if configured
to do so, it should also replace all leading occurrences of that
abbreviation with "Re:" before sending the email. Multiple "Re:"s are
also to be avoided and standardising on *one* abbreviation is one way to
ensure this can be done easily without every email user agent knowing
every abbreviation for every language in the world.

Picture one Mail User Agent that uses "Re:" and another that uses
(for a fictional example) "Gw:" and neither recognises the other's
abbreviation. Joe Blow writes to Geo Bleau to arrange catering for
his wedding:
Subject: Wedding Plans
Geo replies (adding "Gw:"):
Subject: Gw: Wedding Plans
Joe responds (adding "Re:"):
Subject: Re: Gw: Wedding Plans
Geo replies:
Subject: Gw: Re: Gw: Wedding Plans
By the time the plans are final, you have a subject like this:
Subject: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re:
Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re:
Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re:
Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re:
Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Wedding Plans

Note that I have seen similar behaviour on Usenet in the past when someone
was using a stupidly-internationalized version of a Windows email/news
client. If my memory is correct, "Sv:" was one such abbreviation used
leading to posts with subjects that began with "Sv: Re: Sv: Re: ...".

--
``Why don't you find a more appropiate newsgroup to post this tripe into?
This is a meeting place for a totally differnt kind of "vision impairment".
Catch my drift?'' -- "jim" in alt.disability.blind.social regarding an
off-topic religious/political post, March 28, 2005

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

[...]

The string "Re: ", with the space, is part of the protocol and must not
be localized. Microsoft has seriously broken this in many versions of
Outlook Express and Outlook, by misguided "localization" that breaks the
whole idea. That's why we _still_ see the absurd and disturbing mess
like "Re:VS:VS:Aw:Sv:Re" on Subject lines.

[...]

Why did Microsoft feel that "re:" needed to be translated into other
languages but not into English? Are Latin abbreviations not commonly
used in other European languages (I did notice some German text that
used "usw" instead of "etc.")?

Nick

--
Nick Theodorakis
nick_theodorakis (AT) hotmail (DOT) com
contact form:
http://theodorakis.net/contact.html

Norman L. DeForest wrote:

By the time the plans are final, you have a subject like this:
Subject: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re:
Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re:
Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re:
Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re:
Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Re: Gw: Wedding Plans

Probably top-posted above a few megabytes of trailing junk, too, maybe
with some cutesy stationery with attached graphics, and perhaps an
MS-Word attachment too.

But I've seen messages in all-English-language mailing lists with long
strings of "Re: Re: Re:" at the start of the subject, so it doesn't
seem to even require "internationalization" to achieve this effect.

--
Dan

On 3 Oct 2005 09:01:04 -0700, "Nick Theodorakis"
<nick_theodorakis (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Why did Microsoft feel that "re:" needed to be translated into other
languages

The clue is that big word beginning with "M"

Protocols? They've heard of 'em!

Once upon a time *Andy Dingley* wrote:

On 3 Oct 2005 09:01:04 -0700, "Nick Theodorakis"
nick_theodorakis (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Why did Microsoft feel that "re:" needed to be translated into other
languages

The clue is that big word beginning with "M"

Protocols? They've heard of 'em!

Did they seriosly know that "Re:" is Latin?
It is a common misconception that the "Re:" in e-mail replies stands
for "reply" or "response". So when translated IE/OE to Swedish
versions the words stands for "svar" in Swedish, and then the
abbreviation will be "Sv:"

--
/Arne
Now killing all posts originating at GoogleGroups
Workaround: http://www.safalra.com/special/googlegroupsreply/
-------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:00:03 +0200, Arne <invalid (AT) domain (DOT) invalid> wrote:

So when translated IE/OE to Swedish
versions the words stands for "svar" in Swedish, and then the
abbreviation will be "Sv:"

When translated to Swedish, the word in the SMTP protocol is still "Re:"

The protocol says this should not be changed or internationalised. Microsoftoft
get it clearly _wrong_ by doing this.

On Tue, 04 Oct 2005 00:00:03 +0200, Arne <invalid (AT) domain (DOT) invalid> wrote:

Once upon a time *Andy Dingley* wrote:

On 3 Oct 2005 09:01:04 -0700, "Nick Theodorakis"
nick_theodorakis (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:
Why did Microsoft feel that "re:" needed to be translated into other
languages

The clue is that big word beginning with "M"
Protocols? They've heard of 'em!

Yes, they know all about it.

Did they seriosly know that "Re:" is Latin?

Yes, absolutely.

It is a common misconception that the "Re:" in e-mail replies stands
for "reply" or "response". So when translated IE/OE to Swedish
versions the words stands for "svar" in Swedish, and then the
abbreviation will be "Sv:"

Sure; that was just one of the plots.

There was, seriously, a time period when Microsoft thought they had the right
to "set new standards" based on massive user input/requests from other
companies that had less than zero interests in long lasting solutions
but just saw a possibility to make money by the minute where the minutes
where limited.

This attitude of Microsoft has changed slightly in later times, but not far
enough just yet

Translation of Microsoft software for country specific needs takes place (used
to) on Microsoft subsidiaries in Ireland where I can guarantee you that people
are smart enough to know what's wrong when they see it but also don't
mind to take a dollar to look the other way

Standardization can never be run by companies that are bound to profit
for their existence, that's why we have independent org's to run such
things. The deadly sin of "Human Greed" will always stand in the way of
real value progress.

--
Rex