WHEN letters were the only form of written correspondence, signing off was obvious. Actually, I still follow that old tradition, whether it comes to letters or emails. It is simply a matter of respect and good manners.
If addressing a sir or madam, the convention was unambiguous: you concluded with “Yours faithfully.” When writing to a specific person — for example, a Mr. or Ms. (hey, ladies first!) — it was equally simple: your letter would always be signed off with “Yours sincerely.” Only missives to family members or close friends would ever end with “Love from” or “With much love, yours.”
For many people, there seems to be a weird status thing when it comes to how blunt you can be in emails. I ask myself: Why? An email is still a letter — just an online one.
Sad to say, the arrival of email has disrupted this etiquette, making the rules far less obvious. Indeed, for many of us, there are no rules anymore. A whole subculture of personalized email sign-offs has emerged, ranging from “TTFN” to “peace out.” And, of course, it is not just what we say but why we say it. This is true not only in English but in other languages as well. I encounter the same thing in German emails, letters and even text messages.
“Emails have become the medium of business, leisure, family, love and everything,” says children’s author Michael Rosen. When we sign off emails, we try to give off the “right vibe,” he adds. He says it is all about how we want to come across to the recipient: “Thoughtful, grateful or just very, very busy?” Oh sure, we are all so very, very busy….
Some of the most successful businesspeople are notoriously blunt in email communication — if they even bother with a sign-off at all.
“There’s a weird status thing when it comes to the more blunt you are in emails, the more you can be (blunt) because you’re senior in the company,” says author Emma Gannon, recalling the editor of a famous newspaper whose response to pitches was often just a curt “yep” or “nope.”
Although being succinct can convey a certain authority and status, it can also communicate a dose of self-importance or arrogance. And we have all dealt with bosses who fire off email edicts such as “Is this done?” or “Update me on that.”
Even if they are not quite so direct, many emailers like to convey a sense of being busy by using or adapting abbreviations. Thus, “kind regards” becomes “KR,” while “yours” may dispense with those pesky vowels and become “yrs.” Heaven forbid!
“When someone signed off ‘BR’ for ‘best regards’, I just thought they were cold, brrr,” says Gannon. In my opinion — sorry to say — I sometimes do not even reply anymore after receiving such correspondence. Oh sure, we are all busy, but there should at least be a minimum level of respect when communicating with someone, whether in business or in our personal lives, and whether by letter, email or text message.
Then there are those who pare things down to the absolute minimum, signing off simply with their name or even just the initial letter of their first name. Others might omit a sign-off altogether. While this may come across as peremptory or rude, at least it avoids misinterpretation.
Emails are nearly formal, but not totally formal. At the same time, they are not quite as informal as “CU in a MNT on bus OMW.”
Some people swing the other way and end their emails on an altogether friendlier note. While most would consider kisses to have no place in a business environment, they often creep into emails — sometimes from people the recipient has never even met. For some, an “x” at the end of an email is a friendly endnote; for others, it is totally inappropriate.
Even simply calling someone by their first name is not always the way it should be in business.
What is clear is that some British terms used to end emails simply do not translate well. A casual “cheers” is frequently used as a sign-off in UK emails but can be utterly perplexing to other nationalities. That is hardly surprising when a hearty “cheers” can also accompany the clinking of glasses at the pub or be used to thank a checkout person at the supermarket. Here, too, we have to deal with the differences between British and American English.
For author Michael Rosen, emails now occupy a halfway house between text messages and traditional letters.
“The key thing is that emails aren’t the same as letters. I position them in my mind as a sort of halfway place between texts and hard copy letters: nearly formal but not totally formal, but they’re not as informal as ‘CU in a MNT on bus OMW’,” says Rosen. I strongly agree with him.
And, he adds, given their place in this ambiguous no-man’s-land of communication, it follows that there will continue to be a whole raft of ways to say “goodbye.”
Perhaps that is the point. To say goodbye with deeper meaning, use words that honor the bond you share, acknowledge the sadness of parting, or simply wish someone peace and happiness on the road ahead. Sometimes, a thoughtful farewell can say far more than a simple “bye.”
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