Re
March 17, 2006
I always assumed that the word re, as in "re your email dated 6 March, I thank you very much for the offer of $1,000,000 in cash, but I shan’t be taking it up" was short for "regarding". Well, not at all! According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary:
re, prep. in the matter of (as the first word of a heading, esp. of a legal document). 2 colloq. about, concerning. [Latin, ablative of res ‘thing’]
The things you learn while trying to put down slightly dodgy words during a game of Scrabble.
Posted by céline, in Words, on March 17, 2006If I had know how useful it would have come later, I would have paid much more attention during Latin classes in middle and high school... now I wish I could remember the little I had actually learnt, but it's too late.
Posted by Riccardo on March 17, 2006 8:16 PMI studied Latin for two years and loved it: it was like discovering my language's ancestry. I had a real dilemma when I went to lycée, however, as I couldn't do German and Latin. I picked German because it's a living language, and I felt I didn't need to study Latin in greater depth as I actually would never get to use it to communicate. I'm not an academic at heart...
Posted by céline on March 18, 2006 9:12 AMI studied Latin for nigh on ten years and loved every minute of it. I did the opposite of what you did, Céline: I dropped German after two years (my parents spoke Yiddish at home and I was getting confused) to carry on with Latin. It has been invaluable.
Posted by Bela on March 21, 2006 3:22 AMPrevious: March 15, 2006
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