Just about every job I’ve ever had has involved handling a certain amount of correspondence.
Learning the semantic difference between Herzliche Grüße, Beste Grüße, Freundliche Grüße and Mit freundlichen Grüßen was a big and very necessary step in my first office job in Germany. In the same way, we know that a lot of you are confused by what seem to be similar differences in English between Sincerely, Sincerely yours, Yours faithfully, Best wishes and other ways of ending a letter.
Here’s some good news: there’s not much difference anymore. “Sincerely” in America and “Yours sincerely” in Britain will almost always do the trick in a business letter. “Best wishes” and “Best regards” are more suitable if you know the person you’re writing to.
Now for the bad news: e-mail is a different animal. Its speed, convenience and volume excuse a great deal of laxness, which starts as soon as the message begins. The customary salutation Dear Mr. Pilewski, once shortened to Hi Mike, is now usually reduced to Mike, and sometimes even miniaturized to just Hi. With luck, there will still be a valediction — a polite closing — although the “Best regards” of yore is often shortened to “Best”. (Best what? I have to ask.) Sometimes the sender ends the message with his or her name, sometimes not.
Do we need any of it?
Earlier this month in Slate magazine, Matthew J. X. Malady suggested that formality might just be unnecessary in e-mail altogether. The mail header identifies the sender and the date. The recipient doesn’t need to be reminded of his or her own name. And anything tacked on at the end, after official business, is a waste of time to read. E-mail is basically a text message, he said, and should be treated as such.
“E-mail sign-offs are holdovers from a bygone era when letter-writing — the kind that required ink and paper — was a major means of communication. The handwritten letters people sent included information of great import and sometimes functioned as the only communication with family members and other loved ones for months. In that case, it made sense to go to town, to get flowery with it. Then, a formal sign-off was entirely called for.”
He continued:
“Each week, on average, I receive more than 300 e-mails. I send out about 500. These messages do not contain the stuff of old-timey letters. They’re about the pizza I had for lunch (horrendous) and must-see videos of corgis dressed in sweaters (delightful). I’m trading thoughts on various work-related matters with people who know me and don’t need to be ‘Best’-ed.”
Some readers, like “Jonny”, agreed with him.
“Why end our letters with ‘sincerely’? Was there a time when people were sending each other insincere, dare I say, sarcastic letters? When I begin a letter, I assume that it will be sincere, and not the other way around.”
Others, like “Star”, disagreed.
“Putting the name makes clear your intent who the message is for, in the case of an e-mail with multiple recipients. … Typing your name at the end says in essence (and literally) that you are willing to put your good name behind what you’ve just said.”
What most of the respondents agree on is that when it comes to e-mail, one approach does not work for all situations or recipients. You have to decide on a case-by-case basis.
A sign of respect
To me, even in informal e-mail, a proper salutation and a little bit of flowery language communicate a tone of respect — namely that the text of your message contains suggestions, not demands, and that your correspondent is worth more than just a fleeting moment of your time. In the body text, expressions like “please”, “thank you” and “thanks in advance” deserve to be written in full instead of abbreviated to “pls”, “thx” and “tia”.
After years of blunt or missing salutations, I’m amazed to see that some of my 21-year-old American students are now addressing me in e-mail as “Dear Mike”. They even end the e-mail with “Best wishes” or “See you soon!” I don’t know yet whether this is a real trend, but what I’m seeing certainly makes a difference.
So on that note, I remain
With warmest regards
Your most obedient servant
Michael Pilewski
Sent from my iPad
(Just kidding. I don’t own one.)
