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посмотрю завтра по программе И вам отпишусь
The context is i asked someone to check something at work and they are replying. From the context it should be something like "I'll check the programme tomorrow and I'll get back to you". But Wiktionary is saying that отписа́ться = to reply beside the point / give the run around. Which would not be what I want at all! Is there another possible translation here or is the person indeed saying "I'll reply besides the point tomorrow"?
Many Thanks
Hmm, whoever is saying that is indeed saying that they intend to write back to you when they've checked that programme. Just as you said, they'll get back to you :) It's not about replying besides the point, as you, or rather the Wiktionary, have put it. I can't even think of an example where that definition would be true. The closest I can think of is like when you write something to someone with the sole intention of appeasing them, by that I mean like when a boss wants a report from you and you just make something up that's good enough for him or her to shut up and not bother you anymore. There's also a noun that has this meaning, "отписка." For example, the support staff of various companies has a lot of "standard отписка" ready for their customers:cry:
'Отписаться' has meaning "to write letter you must provide with a sole intention to formally fulfill this requirement, but not to solve problem behind it". It's like 'от-вертеться', 'от-прыгнуть' in the sense of 'от-' as 'avoid something with action supplied'. This meaning exists.
But this word is example of single word with opposite meanings (I forgot term for this, english has rich set of these). In this letter 'от-' is used as direction prefix 'from-' and just used in the sense 'there will be letter from me'.