please empty your brain below |
I have the same problem and will be interested to find the collectives answer.
Yours etc, or even, Yours, Bob |
I'm very much a Regards man when it comes to professional work emails but if I'm sending or requesting work related things to my friends it's either "Ta muchly" or "Thanking you kindly".
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I cannot start an email with hi,it has to be hello.
The next line is the worst. Reading "hope you are well" sets my teeth on edge, particularly when the enquiry comes from someone I don't know and probably never will. Drop the faux concern and get to the point, please, it's a written message. It's like the "and how are you today" query that started at American check-outs and has since permeated all kinds of human contact points. Sign off? Depends on the content. To-the-point work emails are either just my name (terse) or regards (never text-style rgds). As ever, Waterhouse |
The first email to someone I've never spoken to before is generally signed off as Kind Regards (even if it does make you shudder) as yes it is sickly but also quite polite, I think.
After that it's Regards (with or without kindness), Thanks (either many or few) or if it's a short email I skip the end of the email completely and just sign off with my name. People I know well get all of the above and the occasional Cheers thrown in for good measure. Best wishes, All the best and Take care are reserved solely for leaving cards. |
I have "Regards" as part of my email signature, so I never even stop to think about it - but of course, on the occasion I send an email in German, I invariably forget to change that bit!
I noticed that the song in the closing credits to "Gibblebiz"(or is it "Justin's House"?) on Cbeebies offers a good choice of sign offs, including TTFN - it would be great if this generation of kids rediscovered this sign off! TTFN, Mark |
Ciao DG!
You need to get more down with the kids. Laterz, innit? GM. |
If there's any chance I'm asking for anything, I end with 'many thanks'. I think it exerts a little moral pressure on them to actually do the thing if they've already had some gratitude in advance.
If I'm feeling terse, and they haven't done anything to help me, then it's just 'best'. Though I've just done a survey of my most recently sent emails and come up with the following endings: 2 x 'very best' 5 x 'Sarah' 3 with no sign off at all 2 x 'S' and one 'very best regards' I think it annoys me when people write 'bw' or 'vb' |
Don't think dg will approve of my signoff practices.
My last 10 work email sent (excluding those that solely comprise a hyperlink or similar) end thusly: Thanks All the best (abbreviated form of my name) Best x5 (nothing at all) x2 Think I best go sit on the naughty seat for a while |
I take the attitude that it is all fatuous. The email header means they know who it comes from and that it is for them. Normally, work-wise at any rate, I just get straight into the matter in hand.
If I have cc'd anyone then I put the person it is addressed to at the top just so everybody is sure whether the email is specifically for them or just "to keep them in the loop". As part of my job I get emails from France but in English. Letter writing is much more formal there and the combination of them being unsure quite what the etiquette is for email, the problems of translation and culture differences mean they often sign off in a strange way. "Cordially" is one of their better attempts. They did once ask what the best thing to do was. I suggested just omit the sign off entirely but they obviously feel uncomfortable about that as they continue to do it. |
I agree "many thanks" is good, but ONLY IF you've made a request.
Hi Helen, Roger says the wording is fine and I'm waiting to hear from Graham. Many thanks, Many thanks for what? Reading my email? Makes no sense at all. In 80% of emails therefore I go with "best wishes" and hang the auntie connotations. In fact the more I think of it the more I like the auntieness of it. |
I almost never end an email with anything other than "Yours" and then my name (full name unless my correspondent and I are on first name terms).
I always begin with "Dear" and then name, same convention. My students address me as "Hi"; when I read this, I think that they don't really know who they are emailing, so their mail is essentially spam and I don't take it seriously. The next line plunges straight in unless I am replying to a first email from a stranger, when it is usually "Thank you for your email". |
I'm a best wishes person usually. A lot of people who write to me just end with their name which always seems a bit abrupt.
The French use cordially (mentioned a few comments up)as it is a direct translation of the standard multi-purpose French ending cordialement which is used frequently to end messages. |
I frequently just put "Yours". Of course, you may prefer "I beg to remain, Sir, your most humble and obedient servant" which is just the sort of thing you would expect from a bank manager informing you that your account is overdrawn or from the Income Tax with yet another demand or even one of those spammers.
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For both my work and personal e-mails, my sign-off forms part of my signature, so I always end my e-mails with "Many regards" without even thinking about it.
With regards to the e-mail opening, I now tend to start with just the person's name if I'm sending the message to three people or fewer, otherwise I just tend to start with "All". I do like the flexibility you get with openings and closings in e-mails, especially as when I learnt to write letters in school, I was taught that it was "Yours sincerely" when you had greeted the recipient by name, and "Yours faithfully" otherwise, without exception. |
Interesting topic DG.
I only use "Dear" for the first professional email, otherwise it's "Hello". For friends/family it's usually "Hello" or "Hi". Professionally I'll sign off with "Regards", "Warm Regards" (am I the only one who uses this?) and sometimes "Thanks". Follwed by a comma and then my name (so: Regards, Gary). My full name is in my signature. Friends & family may get a "Love" or "Take Care" but often just my name and 1-3 'x's. |
DG, Gahhhhh - I'd just typed a full explanation of what to do in each circumstance and now its disappeared. B***er. Tough!, B |
"Many thanks" if I'm acknowledging or requesting something - or "thanking you in anticipation" in the latter case: otherwise usually just my name.
Opening is difficult if there are multiple addressees. I have used "Gentlemen" if appropriate but shy away from forms like "Lady and Gentlemen", "Ladies" (or "Dear Ladies"!). My boss uses "Chaps", for staff circulars, despite one of his staff being female. These forms don't work well if, like "Pedantic of Purley", there are "cc" or "Bcc" addressees who I don't want to act on the request made to the actual addressee. "Dear Tom, Dick and Harriet" is messy. Sometimes it's simpler to send a separate email to the cc addressees, forwarding the original but with an additional "for information" caption. (This also allows me to select which addressees get the bulky or sensitive attachments) |
For me it's usually 'hi' to colleagues (or if a short note just 'Thanks Bernard, R') with the sign off as many thanks if I've asked them to do something or 'hope this helps' if they've asked me to do something. To formal business writing it's sincerely (or faithfully) all the time.
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I nearly always treat emails as if I'm paying by the word. Say nothing at all except for the actual message.
Only exception is if it's to someone who I know is upset (at me, or at someone else). Then I spend hours agonising over exactly what words to use, and usually finish up by flinging it in the virtual bin and phoning. |
I just blanket everything in "Regards" and almost never bother with an introductory phrase at all.
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Luckily I don't have to send business emails nowadays.
I do not put Dear or Hi, just the person's first name (even if I've never met the person). Or nothing it is a reply to a successions of emails back and forth. Usually I'll end with thanks or many thanks but only if appropriate. Never used 'yours' but have been tempted to put 'up yours' at times. |
I usually just put thanks I suppose an abbreviated form of your favourite Many thanks.
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I've become a bit of a 'Good morning' or 'Good afternoon' starter to e-mails and a simple 'thanks' to sign off.
That feels comfortable to me in even a quite formal message. THe 'Hope you are OK?' opener, particularly with the question mark, really grates as it begs a reply, same as when you get a sales call from someone you have never spoken to before and they start with 'How are you today?'.....well since you ask, the dog died yesterday, the house has flooded and the car was stolen, now what stupid question would you like to ask next? Mr BW |
I almost always go for the 'Dear --', after it was drummed into my Australian head by an English boss several years ago. Now anything less seems way too casual. When I am sending something out of the blue, I often start with 'Dear --', then a simple 'Greetings.' as the first word of the body to estamblish a semblance of friendliness.
Our work signature includes 'Regards' but I'd say I add a 'Kind' about 20% of the time, and a Many Thanks about 20% (for requests) - not mutually exclusive. No-one's mentioned the combo 'Thanks and Regards' which I sometimes use but I think 'Thanks' without a 'Many' sounds very casual. Yet 'Thankyou.' can sound incredibly terse - sometimes appropriate, most time not, I feel. And Thankyou [Name] tends to sound patronising, where 'Thanks [Name]!' sounds happy and genuinely grateful. What a jolly minefield! |
Hi,
Just checking through my inbox, a survey of recent emails suggests a tendency to use my name only with friends, and 'Regards,' for work emails. I found the latter works best with a comma rather than a full stop. Only one or two select friends get the name with an 'x'. 'Kind regards' is a rarity and 'Many thanks' is used only where I've made a request. 'Dear' for those who address me likewise, 'Hello' for work emails to people I have met, and 'Hi' for day to day conversations (never with senior managers though). I do use some of the other sign-offs but unsurprisingly it depends on the context, which is why I don't have a default one in my signature. Regards, |
If it's someone I don't know, I generally echo what they sent me (Hi, Hello or Dear...). For signoff, it's increasingly 'cheers' which works as both 'thanks' and 'regards' unless more formality is needed and then it's generally 'thanks'. Not thought of 'regards' but I might use it in future.
Increasingly, though using my phone for email has made me much more direct, possibly even abrupt - if someone's sent me an email with a question in it, say, I might just dive straight in with the answer - no greeting, no signature, nothing. Not sure what I think of this development... |
Oh and who uses inline commenting in emails these days? It used to be you stuck your answers interspersed between their email as in:
> Are you coming on Friday? maybe > and if so what time? probably around 9 etc.. and trimmed away all the irrelevant bits of the email. But I see that so rarely now - it actually confuses me when I encounter it these days |
disgrunted,
I do! - if it is sent in plain text. Otherwise I cut and paste the questions or comments and highlight it in a different colour. Quite useful for answering a series of technical questions. One of my colleagues then puts his responses in yet another different colour. It is a really good way of keeping track of the issues. Has the weird side effect that we rarely talk because then we don't have a record of the comments made. |
We used to have a habit of doing this at work and inventing incredibly creative names for the colours we'd selected. I guess you had to be there!
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I work in France at the moment and it has a range of email signoffs far beyond 'cordialement', which might be used for a very formal email to a stranger. Internally for work teams 'merci en avance' (thanks in advance) is quite common, but I dislike as it is a bit presumptive. Sometimes they are tailored to the contents of the email: 'bonne lecture' (happy reading) for a report attachment or 'bonne courage' (take heart) for a mail about a difficult task. You also have 'bonne journee' (have a good day), 'a demain' (till tomorrow) or, perhaps most frequently, nothing at all (politeness is a complicated business here, after all)
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I seem to use Hallo xxxx very often. I end a message with whatever seems appropriate to the recipient but mostly with Regards.
A suitably Old London-Essex ending might be Okeydokey mate. I suppose now we would have to use an Innit somewhere. |
If I know the recipient I'll start with a Hi, otherwise I'm a Dear person. If it's to some entity, I don't like to use Dear sir/madam, so I usually use the name I know - Dear Metropolitan Police...
I also see the opening and sign-off as dangling phrases, so go for explicit ellipses. cheers... Martin... |
At home I'll always start Hi and probably end with nothing other than my standard name .sig.
At work I'll often say Hi |
I have de honour to be
Sir Your obedient server, Caravelle. |
I've been writing 'Best Wishes' on many of my work-related emails for years and, Christ, you're right, it sounds bloody awful. I've just been typing it automatically, so thank you for finally opening my eyes to its inanity. I'll never use it again!
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Regards and then a comma before my name. Sometimes changed to Thanks and a comma if required. Not using the comma seems more abrupt and separate from my name.
Regards, Aidan. |
I'd never heard of 'regards' as a sign-off until people started using it in e-mails. Does it come from the French 'regarde'?
I put 'many thanks' when asking for something, but if you think about it you are thanking someone for doing something before they've agreed to do it - bit like when I was a kid at my local tennis club and the grown up players would say 'thanks' instead of asking for their ball politely when it strayed into your court. Used to annoy the hell out of me. I use 'ta' for informal thanks to friends. Does no one use 'love'? |
I thought I was very out of sync always using hello rather than hi in emails. Obviously I am not. That's good to know.
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What really annoys me is that someone will have "Kind Regards" or "Thanks" in their email auto-signature and will use it on every occasion… even if the email itself is a zinger or repudiating or some other work related issue that isn't pleasant.
I simply don't bother with a valediction of any description, for formal, work emails. So, mine are: Christian name*, then the message itself, then my name at the end plus job title/contact details. No "Regards", no "Yours sincerely", nothing. It's all worthless. *—or, if I don't know the person, I just start without the name, preferring this to "Dear Mr Smith" or the awfully plain "Mr Smith". "Good morning" might suffice, I suppose. Thank you kindly, Neil |
disgruntled: All those of us who know how to use email still trim and interleave comments. It's just that, some time in the 90s, our comparatively tiny numbers of early adopters were swamped by the AOL and Microsoft Outlook brainless zombies of Internet legend.
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One of my nephews ends his personal emails with 'Righto', which seems to imply 'I'll be off now.' He likes to be different.
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41 comments so far must be a record for a non-food or Underground related posting.
Personally I hate 'regards' or anything else that sounds insincere. Another annoying phrase that seems to have crept into e-mails recently is 'much appreciated' - does anyone actually say this is in real life. Another question I have on letter and e-mail writing etiquette that my wife and I can't agree on is whether to start the first line after the greeting with a capital or not. |
When I worked for a well known national broadcasting organisation, I remember agonising over an important and serious email to a member of the public. I'd spent some time getting the tone exactly right, only to discover later that my concluding condolences were immediately followed by '..and don't miss the new series of Spooks starting next week!' That line had, of course, been added automatically by our email system, as it was to every outgoing message from the organisation. In those days these messages were changed according to somebody's whim - I mean, the corporate publicity strategy - so you never knew how your email would actually conclude. Nowadays even short and friendly emails from large organisations seem to go out with increasingly threatening legal disclaimers, company logos and pretentious mission statements stuck on the end, against which 'Hi' or 'Regards' can't hope to compete.
So there.. |
Whiff
Is your wife German? They don't start the first line after the greeting with a capital. But in English we do, and that's irrespective of whether there's been a comma or not. (The comma depends on whether you use open or closed punctuation.) A random passer-by |
They do indeed say "much appreciated" - its often heard in the Midlands....poke fun at the dialect all you like, the people are generally very friendly and polite.
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I use "Best," at the end of my emails but I feel I may be part of some horrid work-speak trend. I quite often use "Many Thanks" and "All the best" too depending on the context.
Best, Adam |
Dear DG,
I found this blogposting very amusing, but I am left more confused than ever how to write emails. I still like to write old fashioned letters, especially to Revenue and Customs, and my local Council, so am retaining this somewhat stilted style to you. Keep up the good work. Yours sincerely, SurreyGirl. |
I just read a stunning email ending which I just love, courtesy of Matt Haynes of http://smokealondonpeculiar.co.uk:
*I have delighted you long enough* Perfect in every way! |
Dear DG.
I'm really pleased that you've written this because it saves me the bother. However, you've missed one sign off which REALLY gets my goat, especially when capitalised. Thank you for reading this. J BTW (a substitute for PS). The above refers to my Indonesian correspondents. |
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