End email with whatever is ‘best’ for you
It was with great interest that we read the blog post, “You’re ending your e-mails wrong,” by Rebecca Greenfield. The headline didn’t disappoint. It turned out to be a great conversation starter.
In this BloombergBusiness piece, we learn a lot of history about how people end their letters and their emails. We also learn a lot from business etiquette consultants.
- First emails were a break from letters, and formalities were abandoned
- Then emails read more like letters, and signature closings returned
- Now emails are more like texts, and we’re back to informal endings
What’s next?
We hope it’s not this, as Greenfield explains in her piece:
Fearful of coming off as too smug or affectionate, we’ve been bullied into using empty words.
I made an (unscientific) online survey, and among my friends and colleagues, 75 percent use best or thanks, though many admitted that neither was ideal.
What is ideal? We think it’s this:
- Whatever works in context of your message
- Whatever will be well-received by your audience, even an audience of one
- Whatever makes you comfortable as the messenger and the conversationalist
And if that means you choose no closing, that should be fine, too. You just wouldn’t want to deter others from making their own choices. You wouldn’t want them to feel they are wrong, right?
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