On 7 Jun 08, at 10:31, James Waddick wrote: > We may be beating the proverbial D. H. Not really. > But all this confusion might be cleared by the addition of one > word. : "NOW" I just sent a note to PB labelled "WAS xyz; NOW > abc'. > > Still using two species names might raise eyebrows such as > "Was Allium A, Now Allium B" and the reader might still think this was > a species name change, not just a subject change. Unfortunately, that flies in the face of long-established convention. It is better in these matters to accept that the ancients knew what they were doing, and even if the practices and conventions they settled on after great travail are not as widely known as they should be, let's adhere to them. Thus: Original message: Subject: Blah blah blah First reply: Subject: Re: Blah blah blah Second reply to original message: Subject: Eeek eeek eeek, was Blah blah blah Reply to first reply Subject: Meow meow meow, was Re: Blah blah blah. Note the use of commas. Also, for those who mistakenly interpreted the subject line as a declarative statement, please don't. Unless a subject line has a verb in it, it's not declarative. If you want your subject to make a statement, as opposing to simply naming the subject of the message, write, for example: Subject: Ornithogalum dubium is the same as Notholirion thompsonianum. To which a reply might be Subject: No it ain't, was Ornithogalum same as Notholirion thompsonianum. But it's probably better to restrict your statements to the body of the message; otherwise we'll jointly and severally chase ourselves up a tree labelled "utter confusion." I'm not entirely sure, but I think there are RFC's (internet standards) that prescribe these things. For the benefit of those not overly familiar with mailing lists, a reminder that an accurate Subject: line is important. Many of us receive a great many emails from many sources, and simply scan down a list of subject lines to select the messages we will read. If one of them is vague, or confusing, or ambiguous, or too cute for words, we simply skip over it. Be especially careful that you don't accidentally write a subject line that looks like it's spam. Moral: keep your subject lines short, to the point, and accurate if you want everyone to read what you have written. -- Rodger Whitlock Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate on beautiful Vancouver Island