I have been communicating with a person in Germany.

Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the original
subject of my post.

For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no quotes), the
reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.

I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly unclear.

TIA

Boris wrote:

> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>
> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the original
> subject of my post.
>
> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no quotes), the
> reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>
> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly unclear.
>
> TIA

Looks like your friend is doubling the Re: prefix string (abbreviation
for Regarding). I'm guessing Betr is the abbreviation for Betreff means
Regarding in German. So your friend is prefixing the English equivalent
"Re: Re:" to her replies. Perhaps her e-mail client doesn't recognize
your "Re:" at the beginning of the Subject header, so her client adds
"Re:" to her reply, but as "Betr:" (Betreff) as German is her native
language. As an English speaker, you add "Re:" to your replies. As a
German speaker, she adds "Betr:". Same thing, different languages.

If your message to her does not have "Re:", and you indicated, she is
doubling up on the "Re:" prefix in her replies, but the outside "Re:" is
in her Germanic language as "Betr:". Ask her if she is doing this
manually when replying. The client may add "Re:", but she is manually
prefixing "Betr:", and upon send as a reply is when it adds "Re:". Your
client, when you reply, will prefix "Re:" to the Subject header unless
it is already there (i.e., you're replying to a reply). If she doesn't
know what "Re:" means, or understand English, she might be editing the
Subject header to add her own Germanic version as "Betr:" in a reply.

Does she read English natively? Or is she perhaps using a translator
add-on? You didn't mention which e-mail client she uses.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/german-english/betreff

You need to ask her what she is doing on her end when replying, or ask
if she is using an add-on to aid in translation of e-mails.

On 3/13/2022 9:53 PM, Boris wrote:
> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>
> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the original
> subject of my post.
>
> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no quotes), the
> reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>
> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly unclear.
>
> TIA
>

I guess I'll have to sit in the nincompoop group, as I did not
know that "Re:" was Latin. I don't think I saw that in any
correspondence with Caesar.

https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/message/Message-Headers.html

"message-subject-re-regexp

Responses to messages have subjects that start with ‘Re: ’. This is not an
abbreviation of the English word “response”, but is Latin, and means “in response to”.

Some illiterate nincompoops have failed to grasp this fact, and have
“internationalized” their software to use abominations like ‘Aw: ’ (“antwort”)
or ‘Sv: ’ (“svar”) instead, which is meaningless and evil. However, you may have
to deal with users that use these evil tools, in which case you may set this
variable to a regexp that matches these prefixes.
"

Here's what Wiki has to say. Auf Deutsch.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betreff

"RfC 5322 only provides for the character string Re: to be used once , "

Paul

Boris wrote:
> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>
> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the original
> subject of my post.
>
> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no quotes),
> the reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>
> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly unclear.

Weird, because the explanation is simple: it's extremely likely that she
mainly communicates with German people and therefore uses a localized
mail client. You can expect the same when you start communicating with
people in other countries. In German "Betr." stands for "Betrifft". You
might also see other German words in her messages, e.g. "Boris schrieb"
instead of "Boris wrote".

But apart from this, why does it (seem to) bother you? If it were Greek,
Cyrillic, Arab, Hindi, Inuit, then I'd understand.

-p

Boris <Boris@invalid.invalid> posted this :
>
> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>
> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the original
> subject of my post.
>
> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no quotes),
> the reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>
> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly unclear.
>
> TIA

It's the official Nazi abbreviation for "betrifft" which properly means
"Regards, I like to goosestep" but colloquially probably only means
"Regarding" or "Bez�glich" with or without all the goosestepping virtue
signaling.

Hoffe das hilft.

The Mike Easter response:

"Modern Standard German is a West Germanic language in the Germanic branch
of the Indo-European languages. The Germanic languages are traditionally
subdivided into three branches, North Germanic, East Germanic, and West
Germanic. The first of these branches survives in modern Danish, Swedish,
Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, all of which are descended from Old
Norse. The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic is the only
language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic
languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are
now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch,
Yiddish, Afrikaans, and others.

Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and
Uerdingen lines (running through D�sseldorf-Benrath and Krefeld-Uerdingen,
respectively) serve to distinguish the Germanic dialects that were affected
by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were
not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of
these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the
north comprise the Low German/Low Saxon and Low Franconian dialects. As
members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and
Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically
as Irminonic, Ingvaeonic, and Istvaeonic, respectively. This classification
indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by the Irminones
(also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group),
and Istvaeones (or Weser-Rhine group).

Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian-Upper Saxon and
Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German
dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore
closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such
as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects) and Yiddish. Also
closely related to Standard German are the Upper German dialects spoken in
the southern German-speaking countries, such as Swiss German (Alemannic
dialects) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of
Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central- and Upper
Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian).

After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related
to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g. Dutch and Afrikaans),
Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern
Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As
has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the
latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the
differences between these languages and standard German are therefore
considerable. Also related to German are the Frisian languages�North
Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland),
and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland)�as well as the Anglic languages of
English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the
High German consonant shift.

<https://www.britannica.com/topic/German-language>

<https://germanculture.com.ua/german-traditions/the-history-of-the-german-
language/>

<https://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling450ch/reports/german.html>

<http://www.germanlanguageguide.com/german/facts/history/> "

It's like Hitler said when USA started bombing Berlin, "Yikes, I did NAZI
that coming!"
--

I AM Bucky Breeder, (*(^;

And *NO*, that is *NOT* a Jedi Light Saber I have in my pocket!

But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm happy to see you either.

Piet wrote:

> Boris wrote:
>> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>>
>> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the original
>> subject of my post.
>>
>> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no quotes),
>> the reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>>
>> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly unclear.
>
> Weird, because the explanation is simple: it's extremely likely that she
> mainly communicates with German people and therefore uses a localized
> mail client. You can expect the same when you start communicating with
> people in other countries. In German "Betr." stands for "Betrifft". You
> might also see other German words in her messages, e.g. "Boris schrieb"
> instead of "Boris wrote".
>
> But apart from this, why does it (seem to) bother you? If it were Greek,
> Cyrillic, Arab, Hindi, Inuit, then I'd understand.
>
> -p

I think he's wondering why the prefix was added twice. "Betr: Re:", in
English, would be "Re: Re:", so the prefix was duplicated. No matter
how deep the level of replies, "Re:" should only be added once; else,
after a short number of replies, you'd get "Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:",
and so on, as the prefix in the Subject. His friend isn't posting here,
and lots of details were omitted, so we cannot know how his friend
configured her e-mail clients, or even which one she uses.

VanguardLH wrote:
> Piet wrote:
>> Boris wrote:
>>> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>>>
>>> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the original
>>> subject of my post.
>>>
>>> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no quotes),
>>> the reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>>>
>>> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly unclear.
>>
>> Weird, because the explanation is simple: it's extremely likely that she
>> mainly communicates with German people and therefore uses a localized
>> mail client. You can expect the same when you start communicating with
>> people in other countries. In German "Betr." stands for "Betrifft". You
>> might also see other German words in her messages, e.g. "Boris schrieb"
>> instead of "Boris wrote".
>>
>> But apart from this, why does it (seem to) bother you? If it were Greek,
>> Cyrillic, Arab, Hindi, Inuit, then I'd understand.
>
> I think he's wondering why the prefix was added twice.

Maybe, maybe not.

> "Betr: Re:", in English, would be "Re: Re:", so the prefix was duplicated.

Seen that before, about a zillion times. And variants like
Re: Re: Fw: RE: FW:
and so on.

> No matter how deep the level of replies, "Re:" should only be added once

*should*, yeah. But maybe his communication partner's mailer
was trying to be friendly and kept "Re:" for those who don't
master German and thus don't understand "Betr:".

-p

VanguardLH <V@nguard.LH> wrote in news:25v59vkbfow4.dlg@v.nguard.lh:

> Boris wrote:
>
>> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>>
>> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the
>> original subject of my post.
>>
>> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no
>> quotes), the reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>>
>> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly
>> unclear.
>>
>> TIA
>
> Looks like your friend is doubling the Re: prefix string (abbreviation
> for Regarding). I'm guessing Betr is the abbreviation for Betreff
> means Regarding in German.

I finally found these, and you are right:

https://www.bing.com/search?form=MOZSBR&pc=MOZI&q=betreff
https://dictionary.reverso.net/german-english/Betreff

> So your friend is prefixing the English
> equivalent "Re: Re:" to her replies. Perhaps her e-mail client
> doesn't recognize your "Re:" at the beginning of the Subject header,
> so her client adds "Re:" to her reply, but as "Betr:" (Betreff) as
> German is her native language. As an English speaker, you add "Re:"
> to your replies. As a German speaker, she adds "Betr:". Same thing,
> different languages.
>
> If your message to her does not have "Re:", and you indicated, she is
> doubling up on the "Re:" prefix in her replies, but the outside "Re:"
> is in her Germanic language as "Betr:". Ask her if she is doing this
> manually when replying. The client may add "Re:", but she is manually
> prefixing "Betr:", and upon send as a reply is when it adds "Re:".
> Your client, when you reply, will prefix "Re:" to the Subject header
> unless it is already there (i.e., you're replying to a reply). If she
> doesn't know what "Re:" means, or understand English, she might be
> editing the Subject header to add her own Germanic version as "Betr:"
> in a reply.
>
> Does she read English natively? Or is she perhaps using a translator
> add-on? You didn't mention which e-mail client she uses.
>
> https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/german-english/betreff
>
> You need to ask her what she is doing on her end when replying, or ask
> if she is using an add-on to aid in translation of e-mails.

I will ask next time I write to her. In the meantime, I've gone back
over all of the emails she has sent or to which she has replied.

First, a little background is needed.

I've been communicating, via email, with three women. One is in Germany,
and two are in England. When any one of us initiates an email, it is
usually sent to all of the others, and/or cc'd to all of the others. If
either of the two women in England reply, the header is "Re:", and if the
German woman replies, I now notice, after looking back, the headers are
varied. The headers have been "Betreff:", "Betr.:", and "Betr.: Re:".

It turns out that the "Betr.: Re:" header was on an email that was passed
around to others before it was 'betreff'd" to me from Germany. I don't
know why Betreff is sometimes spelled out and sometimes abbreviated, but
any email that is replied to me directly seems to always use "Betreff:"

I don't know what email tool anyone uses, but the women in England
sometimes use iPhones/iPads.

I'm not all that good at deciphering header details, but here's some
detail of each of their headers, if interested:

England lady1
lady1@sky.com
X-Mailer: iPhone Mail (18F72)
X-Sonic-MF: <lady1@sky.com>
Received: from sonic.gate.mail.ne1.yahoo.com by
sonic302.consmr.mail.ir2.yahoo.com with HTTP; Sun, 4 Jul 2021 20:00:11 +
0000
Received: by kubenode519.mail-prod1.omega.ir2.yahoo.com (VZM Hermes SMTP
Server) with ESMTPA ID b77a9886db83d3a93f34d2fe06227ea8;

OR

England lady1
lady1@sky.com
Received: from sonic.gate.mail.ne1.yahoo.com by
sonic307.consmr.mail.ir2.yahoo.com with HTTP;
X-Mailer: WebService/1.1.18469 YMailNorrin

It looks like lady1's ISP is Sky, but I don't understand the connection
with Sonic/Yahoo. There is a SkyYahoo web mail.

England lady2
lady2@hotmail.co.uk
X-OriginatorOrg: outlook.com

Germany lady3
lady3@aol.com
Received: from sonic.gate.mail.ne1.yahoo.com by
sonic313.consmr.mail.gq1.yahoo.com with HTTP;
X-Mailer: WebService/1.1.18469 aolloki

Piet <www.godfatherof.nl/@opt-in.invalid> wrote in
news:t0nfv0$om5$1@gioia.aioe.org:

> Boris wrote:
>> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>>
>> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the
>> original subject of my post.
>>
>> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no
>> quotes), the reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>>
>> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly
>> unclear.
>
> Weird, because the explanation is simple: it's extremely likely that
> she mainly communicates with German people and therefore uses a
> localized mail client. You can expect the same when you start
> communicating with people in other countries. In German "Betr." stands
> for "Betrifft". You might also see other German words in her messages,
> e.g. "Boris schrieb" instead of "Boris wrote".

You're right. One of her replying emails says, "Am 01.08.2021 04:02:33
Mitteleurop�ische Zeit schrieb boris@xxxx.xxx:

>
> But apart from this, why does it (seem to) bother you? If it were
> Greek, Cyrillic, Arab, Hindi, Inuit, then I'd understand.

No bother.

>
> -p
>

Bucky Breeder <Breeder_Bucky-Breeder@That's.my.name_Don't.wear.it.out>
wrote in news:XnsAE5A5AB62FC7EOhmmmmmmm@85.12.62.254:

> Boris <Boris@invalid.invalid> posted this :
>>
>> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>>
>> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the
>> original subject of my post.
>>
>> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no
>> quotes), the reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>>
>> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly
>> unclear.
>>
>> TIA
>
> It's the official Nazi abbreviation for "betrifft" which properly
> means "Regards, I like to goosestep" but colloquially probably only
> means "Regarding" or "Bez�glich" with or without all the goosestepping
> virtue signaling.
>
> Hoffe das hilft.
>
>
> The Mike Easter response:
>
> "Modern Standard German is a West Germanic language in the Germanic
> branch of the Indo-European languages. The Germanic languages are
> traditionally subdivided into three branches, North Germanic, East
> Germanic, and West Germanic. The first of these branches survives in
> modern Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic, all of
> which are descended from Old Norse. The East Germanic languages are
> now extinct, and Gothic is the only language in this branch which
> survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have
> undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in
> modern languages such as English, German, Dutch, Yiddish, Afrikaans,
> and others.
>
> Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and
> Uerdingen lines (running through D�sseldorf-Benrath and
> Krefeld-Uerdingen, respectively) serve to distinguish the Germanic
> dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south
> of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various
> regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High
> German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low
> German/Low Saxon and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West
> Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian
> have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as
> Irminonic, Ingvaeonic, and Istvaeonic, respectively. This
> classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken
> by the Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North
> Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser-Rhine group).
>
> Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian-Upper Saxon
> and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper
> German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is
> therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German
> dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects)
> and Yiddish. Also closely related to Standard German are the Upper
> German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries, such
> as Swiss German (Alemannic dialects) and the various Germanic dialects
> spoken in the French region of Grand Est, such as Alsatian (mainly
> Alemannic, but also Central- and Upper Franconian dialects) and
> Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian).
>
> After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely
> related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g. Dutch and
> Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern
> Germany and southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High
> German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect
> types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German
> dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages
> and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German
> are the Frisian languages�North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland),
> Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland), and West Frisian (spoken in
> Friesland)�as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These
> Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant
> shift.
>
> <https://www.britannica.com/topic/German-language>
>
> <https://germanculture.com.ua/german-traditions/the-history-of-the-germ
> an- language/>
>
> <https://linguistics.byu.edu/classes/Ling450ch/reports/german.html>
>
> <http://www.germanlanguageguide.com/german/facts/history/> "
>
>
> It's like Hitler said when USA started bombing Berlin, "Yikes, I did
> NAZI that coming!"
>

Nice, but "Who needs the static, it hurts the head." (J. Mitchell, 1982)

Piet wrote:

> VanguardLH wrote:
>> Piet wrote:
>>> Boris wrote:
>>>> I have been communicating with a person in Germany.
>>>>
>>>> Whenever she replies, the subject header adds Betr.: Re: to the original
>>>> subject of my post.
>>>>
>>>> For instance, if I send a post with subject "How are you?" (no quotes),
>>>> the reply is "Betr.: Re: How are you?". Again, no quotes.
>>>>
>>>> I've searched for an answer, but the answers have been mostly unclear.
>>>
>>> Weird, because the explanation is simple: it's extremely likely that she
>>> mainly communicates with German people and therefore uses a localized
>>> mail client. You can expect the same when you start communicating with
>>> people in other countries. In German "Betr." stands for "Betrifft". You
>>> might also see other German words in her messages, e.g. "Boris schrieb"
>>> instead of "Boris wrote".
>>>
>>> But apart from this, why does it (seem to) bother you? If it were Greek,
>>> Cyrillic, Arab, Hindi, Inuit, then I'd understand.
>>
>> I think he's wondering why the prefix was added twice.
>
> Maybe, maybe not.
>
>> "Betr: Re:", in English, would be "Re: Re:", so the prefix was duplicated.
>
> Seen that before, about a zillion times. And variants like
> Re: Re: Fw: RE: FW:
> and so on.
>
>> No matter how deep the level of replies, "Re:" should only be added once
>
> *should*, yeah. But maybe his communication partner's mailer
> was trying to be friendly and kept "Re:" for those who don't
> master German and thus don't understand "Betr:".
>
> -p

Maybe, maybe not. >;->