From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 12:11:37 CST
In <Pine.LNX.4.53.0403291027460.15305@a.shell.peak.org> John Stanley <stanley@peak.org> writes:
>Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk):
>>I agree that
>>the presence or absence of a "Re: " does not help with that process.
>Then just why is it necessary, again?
It isn't (though it has some marginal utility in giving a clue to the
human reader).
The problem is that the usage is almost universal, so we cannot suddenly
declare it to be obsolete. Which is why I have written a text which leaves
it open as to whether it is used. That leaves room for it to die (but if
we want to encourage it to die, which some do and some don't, then USEAGE
is the place to do that).
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5