Revert

I was looking through my old emails earlier, and stumbled upon something which read:

Dear all
We are looking for Japanese speaker for following event.

Please revert to me about your availability.

Date : XX Jan Tuesday

Time : 18:00-22:00

Venue : Fourseasons Hotel

Job detail : reception staff for event hosted by Japanese company

Fee : S$70.00 up to 4 hours and additional S$15.00 / hour after 4 hours.

Changed some details. =D

Running a search through google as well with the word revert, a number of results (from the Singapore pages) displayed usage of the word in the same way as the email above. Now.. It does seem that the word revert here is used to mean reply. However, taking a look at the dictionary, there doesn't seem to be this sense of the word existing.

revert verb
1. revert to sb/sth (law) (of property, rights, etc.) to return to the original owner again—see also reversion

2. revert to sth (formal)
1 to return to a former state; to start doing sth again that you used to do in the past
2 to return to an earlier topic or subject

I think the sense of the word revert as we used it is closer to the 1st sense given in the dictionary entry. In the sense that the email is being sent back to the first person who sent out the mail.


In fact, I found this from the Speak Good English movement website
1. http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/improve/ask-about-english/please-revert-soonest-possible/
2. http://www.goodenglish.org.sg/improve/lessons-tips/tips-work/misusing-the-word-revert-2/


Hmm okay so it isn't standard English, but I wonder why and how did we derive such a meaning from the word revert? Personally, I have not used this word to mean reply before. In fact, I rarely use this word so I am not really sure how it came about.

Should we simply take it as an attempt by people to make themselves more sophisticated by using another word in replacement of the good old reply hence leading to a misconception about the meaning of the word? Or is there something more to it?

What does everyone think?