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Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

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Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#131

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #106
noduerme wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "Best regards" is always acceptable. Inevitably though it comes from either a Brit or a non-native speaker. I really love the French and Spanish sign-offs... Cordialement or the very warm Un abrazo which I get from business associates in Spain. English "regards" seem very cold by comparison.

French sign-off for formal letters: "Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments les plus agréeables" (Please be so good as to accept, Sir, the expression of my warmest feelings) Well, that's what they told me at school - they were trying to teach me how to write business letters. It has always cracked me up. /me not French.

> "Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments les plus agréeables"

That would actually be somewhat familiar for a formal letter. You probably wouldn’t use "les plus agréable" here but rather "respectueux" or "les meilleurs". People just copy and paste them from the internet nowadays when they need to use one.

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#132

Post by ck425 »

vidarh wrote: post #97
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, because it's not a question.

I know that now , hence why that is the first thing my comment makes clear. The point was that it's not at all obvious that it's not a question to someone not used to it being used as a greeting, given that it's worded as a question, and the intonation is given as a question, and given that many places in the world you wouldn't say the equivalent unless you're actually asking a question. English feels to me to be pre…

I wonder why this is. I only speak english so don't have other languages to compare it to. But we use a lot of idioms too, is that also less common in other languages? Could it be because of the wide range of cultures that speak English as their first and only language?

I know there are other languages as or more widely natively spoken (Spanish and Mandarin come to mind) but isn't it common for native speakers of those languages to also natively speak local languages and/or dialects. Could the number of "friendly noises" and idioms in English be because most english speakers only speak english?

In your specific case (ie coming to the UK) you've also the interesting thing where lots of americanisms have been adopted here, while still Britishisms remain. Different regions of Britain also strongly maintain a lot of their own "isms" (Scottish-isms for example) and we still tend to use them with other brits out of local pride. So depending where you are in the UK (London would be the extreme example) you'd likely hear Americanisms and Britishisms on a daily basis plus various region specific isms if you were often around people from those areas.

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#133

Post by mjklin »

suchow wrote: post #5

This is an excellent example of why inferring causation from an observed correlation requires great care. Note that the study did not randomly assign valedictions to emails and observe the causal impact on response rate. Rather, they observed a correlation between the sign-off chosen and the response rate. "Thanks" garners many responses because people use it in emails that make reasonable requests with a good chance…

Perhaps the influence of Hamilton[0] could bring this valediction back into fashion?

[0]: https://youtu.be/V6_qvZFRlJQ

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#134

Post by ck425 »

Fissionary wrote: post #83
bavell wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree but instead I use "Regards". Always works and I never have to think about it. Regards, Another guy on the internet

My English teacher thought that "Regards" sounds rude (like starting your emails with "John," instead of "Dear John,") and that one should always use "Best regards" instead. Seems like there's a lot of nuance here.

I don't read regards as fundamentally rude but I do read it as very cold and formal, which can come off in as rude or passive aggressive depending on the context.

I wouldn't bat an eye if a letter from my bank or a formal HR communication signed off with "Regards". But if a colleague from another team or a senior leader ended an email with "Regards" I would find that rude.

That said I've spent the last two years working in the public sector and have come to learn that the standards for communication and presentation are very different here. I'd still consider it rude from a colleague who worked in my directorate (it's a tech directorate) but if it was from someone outside my directorate I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Though in those cases I also tend to be aggressively informal/casual in my responses.

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#135

Post by ck425 »

This whole thread reminds me of another on the use of emojis in work communication. My main takeaway from that, and from this thread to, was the simply rule:

"Presume good intent"

There are so many different cultures of written communication and due to the internet you're far more likely to come across someone who uses a different "written communication culture" than a spoken one. So if someone comes across as rude or inappropriate due to how they word things I try to actively ignore tone, reserve judgement and presume good intentions.

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#136

Post by denton-scratch »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #131
denton-scratch wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French sign-off for formal letters: "Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments les plus agréeables" (Please be so good as to accept, Sir, the expression of my warmest feelings) Well, that's what they told me at school - they were trying to teach me how to write business letters. It has always cracked me up. /me not French.

> "Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments les plus agréeables" That would actually be somewhat familiar for a formal letter. You probably wouldn’t use "les plus agréable" here but rather "respectueux" or "les meilleurs". People just copy and paste them from the internet nowadays when they need to use one.

Thank you for correcting me; I was taught this stuff 40 years ago, and memory is unreliable.

I didn't know that actual French people had to google to find the right terminology for a formal sign-off; that just adds to the hilarity.

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#137

Post by vidarh »

ck425 wrote: post #128
vidarh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On moving to the UK and for the first time using English "full time" it took me longer than it should have to get used to "how are you?" as merely a "friendly noise". At first I found it incredibly rude how people would ask me a question and then keep walking while I stopped to start answering their question.

Funnily "How are you?" used to be an actual question in the UK. The shift to it being a generic greeting you don't answer is relatively new and I think an americanism. I remember having the same reaction when I went to Uni 11 years ago, It was a Scottish Uni but something like 15-20% of students were american. They'd ask that passing by and I'd stop to answer leading to several awkward encounters. That said even when…

I absolutely think you're right that it's an Americanism. I actually worked at Yahoo in London when I started noticing it, about 18 years ago, and the office was full of Americans and they were most prone to using it.

> That said even when it was a question it was expected that you replied something along the lines of "I'm good thanks, you?". Unless it was a good friend you never replied negatively, though if you had good news it was fine to expand.

Yeah, that was my expectation as well - the answer needs to be adjusted to how close you are, and so it's mostly relatively perfunctory. But occasionally you get more detail than you bargained for.

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#138

Post by vidarh »

ck425 wrote: post #132
vidarh wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that now , hence why that is the first thing my comment makes clear. The point was that it's not at all obvious that it's not a question to someone not used to it being used as a greeting, given that it's worded as a question, and the intonation is given as a question, and given that many places in the world you wouldn't say the equivalent unless you're actually asking a question. English feels to me to be pre…

I wonder why this is. I only speak english so don't have other languages to compare it to. But we use a lot of idioms too, is that also less common in other languages? Could it be because of the wide range of cultures that speak English as their first and only language? I know there are other languages as or more widely natively spoken (Spanish and Mandarin come to mind) but isn't it common for native speakers of tho…

Idioms are common in every language I know (about 4-5 depending on which you count that I speak reasonably, and a few more I can read with some effort).

> Could the number of "friendly noises" and idioms in English be because most english speakers only speak english?

I don't know. My experience is that a lot of languages tends to have a much more formal hierarchy of terms to use for greetings, while English is all over the place. I think maybe part of the challenge is that English is used by people spread out much more and with very varying degree of experience with the language, including people using it as a second language, and so it's in some respect more internally diverse. It also lacks a strong effort to direct the language.

E.g. I'm Norwegian, and Norwegian has an official organ that gives government and the public advice on the evolution of the language, and language reforms have regularly passed as acts of parliament. French has Académie Française. For a lot of languages there are these official or semi-official organisations that sets out how the language will be taught at schools and what the official use should be like. It doesn't stop proliferation of variants (Norwegian authorities have more than once had to admit defeat and undo language reforms that failed to catch on, or just adjust the language to reflect use rather than vice versa), but it does tend to tame it somewhat.

When I first started learning French a quarter of a century ago, one of my classes was "mercantile French" which included lessons on French business correspondence, and one of the things that stuck with me was how much more formal it was (at least back then) in terms of greetings and signoffs and formatting than English correspondence. I'm taking a refresher course for my French these days, and the perceived more formalistic determination of level of formality is quite interesting.

> you've also the interesting thing where lots of americanisms have been adopted here

Yeah, in this case it may well be part of it.

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#139

Post by Xen0byte »

I dislike emails that end in "Thank You In Advance" with such a passion. It's so presumptiout to assume that I will agree to whatever the request is; OK, I might, but don't thank me for something I haven't yet agreed to do, you're just implying that I have no option but to agree. These emails have the lowest reply rate in my mailbox.

Re: Closing email with “thanks” gets the most replies

#140

Post by spacedcowboy »

seanhunter wrote: post #77
suchow wrote: post #5

This is an excellent example of why inferring causation from an observed correlation requires great care. Note that the study did not randomly assign valedictions to emails and observe the causal impact on response rate. Rather, they observed a correlation between the sign-off chosen and the response rate. "Thanks" garners many responses because people use it in emails that make reasonable requests with a good chance…

I am from the UK and work with a lot of Americans. I often sign off emails with "Cheers," which gets a lot of positive comment. As well as being what you might say when clinking glasses, in the UK "cheers" is a jovial way of saying "thanks" as well as something you might say for "goodbye" so works in all these contexts simultaneously.

Yep, Brit here in the US too, and 'Cheers' is my sign-off-of-choice. I'm told that I only get away with it because I'm British though, and my American colleagues would feel awkward using it :)

Cheers!

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