Er.

In preparation for landing, I’ve had a lot of correspondence from home recently. And the one trend I’ve noticed is the flagrantly abusive misuse (superlatives much?) of the word “revert”. As in:

XYZ company says: “Thank you for your email.
We will be reverting to you on your enquiry / booking as soon as possible.”

Even my mother is like, “Pls revert” in her email messages to me.

So I’m like, wtf. And I go looking on MerriamWebster.

Main Entry: reĀ·vert
1 : to come or go back (as to a former condition, period, or subject)
2 : to return to the proprietor or his or her heirs at the end of a reversion
3 : to return to an ancestral type

And its synonym? Regress.

No smart-ass observations on how this might be a Freudian-slip type remark on the state of the country in general. Please. FFS. Make it stop already! I want a reply. A response. But certainly not a reversion.

Maybe I’ll put that in my email signature.

This entry was posted in Guest Blogging, The Eeenglish Police. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Er.

  1. PeiPei says:

    LOL…never noticed that before. I hope the trend doesn’t catch on

  2. gee says:

    I think must check to see if the Brits use it. Might be one fler who went to engerland and learnt it and came back with the bad habit. But as a general rule, Msian business communicatives are chock full of BS language.

  3. PpFt says:

    Whaddaya know, it’s been observed across the Straits of Johor

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