Danger: Salutation Inflation
Kottke linked to an NYTimes article about email send-offs. Signing off with “best” is considered cold, apparently. This is how I end most of my emails. If I’m writing a work email I usually just sign it “-C”. I don’t like to use “cheers” and I don’t use “thanks” except when I’m asking for something (other than the person’s time to read the email), and “warmest regards,” “xoxo,” and their ilk aren’t my style: What’s a pragmatic-yet-polite emailer to do?
Mr. Troutwine is not alone in thinking that an e-mail sender who writes “Best,†then a name, is offering something close to a brush-off. He said he chooses his own business sign-offs in a descending order of cordiality, from “Warmest regards†to “All the best†to a curt “Sincerely.â€
best,
C
p.s. I realize the title should be “valediction inflation,” but that’s so much less fun to say. Can salutation inflation be far off, anyway?
p.p.s. Judging from the comments to Kottke’s post, there are a lot of people who not only have thought this issue through, and created their own hierarchy of sign-offs, but there are many people who spend time thinking about how to conclude every email they send. Language is so imprecise, even when both parties are native speakers. Although for that matter I suppose speech is, too.
