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When chatting online with French people, I often see "re". What does it stand for?

Is it like "brb" (be right back) ?

Stéphane Gimenez
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Ricky Robinson
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  • I used to use it for "I'm back" = je suis de REtour but I'm not sure i was using it correctly. – Papa Poule Feb 14 '15 at 19:54
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    When someone come back after being away he may say "Re" as an English speaker could say "I'm back". It come from "Re-bonjour" which is a slang term for "Hello again". The prefix "re" means "again". – AdrienXL Feb 14 '15 at 21:51
  • I've also seen "Je re" (je reviens) for BRB, and from the "revenir" sense of "je re," "re" all alone, still signifying "I'm back," could also be short for "Revenu(e)," which in turn could be short for "Je suis revenu(e)." – Papa Poule Feb 15 '15 at 00:40
  • "re" est aussi l'abréviation d'une reconnexion. Dans les anciens système de chat où l’inactivité déconnectait systématiquement les participants dans un salon, Lorsqu'on revenait au bout de quelques minutes, on ne pouvait plus communiquer, il fallait cliquer sur le bouton "reconnexion". Et tout simplement dans les chat un peu plus récents, quand quelqu'un quittait une conversation, il disait simplement, je me reconnecte tout à l'heure. – TCHdvlp Feb 17 '15 at 10:00

2 Answers2

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You would use "re" also in person on an informal level when meeting someone you already have greeted on that day ("Bonjour !") and want to repeat... ("Re-bonjour"). The chat use seems parallel to the common practice.

GAM PUB
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http://french.about.com/library/writing/bl-texting.htm

As you can see here, "RE" comes from "de retour" - I'm back.

Edit:

As Laure commented, we can add "re-bonjour" which means "hello again" and is similar to "I'm back".

Barthy
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