“Please revert to my email…” “I will revert to you soon…”
Hm, I wonder when Singaporeans started using this word “revert” thinking it is more profound and more high class than “reply”?
Sigh, even lawyers make this mistake.
Definition of “revert”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revert
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
http://www.answers.com/topic/revert
1 : To come back to a former condition: recrudesce, recur, reoccur, return. See repetition.
2 : To slip from a higher or better condition to a former, usually lower or poorer one: backslide, lapse, regress, relapse, retrogress. See better/worse, repetition.
Application
Technically, nothing is required if you ask someone ”to revert to your email”, as “revert” means “to return to the original state”. If your reader replies to your message, tells you or suggests something, something has changed –> there is no way you can get back to the original state.
It is also impossible for me to “revert to you” or you “revert to me”. I was I for as long as i have been living, likewise for you. I was never you, you were never me. Which means neither can I become you again, nor you can become me again. In real life two different persons cannot turn back into each other.
Definition of “reply”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reply
intransitive verb
1 a : to respond in words or writing b : echo, resound c : to make a legal replication
2 : to do something in response; specifically : to return gunfire or an attack
transitive verb : to give as an answer
We are living in a modern world, modern English works better than clichés. Trying to be “high class” can back fire sometimes.
There is a Chinese saying “厉害就好，不要假厉害！” Don’t try to be smart.
Related topic: Kindly ≠ Please
Related posts:
Chinglish
‘回复’
It might have started as a typo error for 恢复.
①变成原来的样子：秩序～了ㄧ健康已完全～。
②使变成原来的样子；把失去的收回来：～原状ㄧ～失地。
it might be clearer for some if we replace “revert” with “turn back”.
1) Please turn back to me…
=> You and I are two different persons, so can i turn into you vice versa? not possible right? the only “person” who can do this is Incredible Hawk.