From Tapestries MUCK

tell

{tell:string}
{tell:string,player}

If passed only a string, tells the user that string.

If passed both a string, and a player dbref, it will tell the given player the message. This returns the message that was sent.

If the trigger isn't a room, or an exit on a room, and if the message doesn't already begin with the user's name, then the user's name will be prepended to the message.

The two exceptions to this are that if the messages is being sent to the owner of the trigger, or to the user, then the user's name will not be prepended.