linux alias

Check out your alias command using ‘alias’:

1 2	[root@server1 wordpress]# alias alias cp='cp -i'

Sure enough – alias is set on Redhat Based systems into -i, or interactive mode. Remove this alias with ‘unalias cp’ and it will be removed.

also you can use full path to command: 
/bin/cp -Rf * ../public_html/

in this case alias will not work :)