Exciting news from our friends at Graphic Audio: the full-cast dramatized adaptation of White Hot, Hidden Legacy Volume 2, is officially available for preorder on the GA website, with the release landing in your ears on September 4th!
The preorders on Audible & co should appear late next week, because we’re getting preferential treatment hehe. Usually, we wouldn’t see the September preorder data for another month or so, but GA are making a special exception for the Horde. Just for being our awesome selves. Or maybe because they fear our uprising, who can really tell. It’s a mystery.
And then we’ll have samples and ferrets, and cookies and Leon, and ferrets and samples, and sirens and Bunnys and Rogan POVs and ALL the stuff. Fluffy!
“But Mod R, w*iting? Again?! Change the tune!”
A-HA. You know what we don’t have to be p*tient for? Small Magics in dramatized adaptation, the latest in the Kate Daniels world releases by the spectacular Nora Achrati and golden team.
It comes out tomorrow, June 12th and can be found on the GA website and all usual other retailers. Nora will be taking a small break from kicking butts as Kate, and then we’ll get both Wilmingtons AND Blood Heir in the first half of 2026.
Now. Speaking of hot issues, here’s another emerald blazing problem for you (see what I did there?). I need to tap into Horde wisdom.
I’m *officially* out of the loop on email etiquette trends.
I learned English in school, in the former Eastern Bloc. For over two generations, our knowledge of English was preserved in academic isolation, untouched by anything as messy as the reality of how people actually talk. My teachers, who’d never even met a native English speaker, drilled into me the importance of ‘Dear Sir/Madam‘ and ‘Yours Sincerely‘ from textbooks older than my mother. In my culture, formality means politeness. The more you respect someone and the bigger the age difference or favour you’re asking, the more you ramp it up.
Which means I arrived in England 16 years ago perfectly primed to be an anachronistic little ball of passive aggressiveness.
Who knew ‘Yours sincerely‘ basically means ‘I want to hit you with a chair‘? I found that out the hard way.
I got by with Regards (kind, warm and otherwise) for a while until a work colleague pointed out it’s the embodiment of the side eye emoji. You might as well ‘per my last email’ someone.
I’ve been Best and Best Wishing for a couple of years. Happy insert-day-of-week! Times are hard, don’t judge. I knew it was boring, but I thought I was safe. Gen Z comfortably fires off ‘I hope this email doesn’t find you. I hope you’re free’, ‘Please hesitate to contact me’ and ‘Unhingedly yours’. I’m not there yet. I can’t even bring myself to XOXO, Gossip Mod.
Mr Mod R peeked at my email this morning and let out a chuckle (blood-curdling in hindsight). “Best wishes. Harshhhhh. What did they do?”
Who can keep up?! Not moi.
I trust your collective brilliance to guide me out of email faux pas territory. Drop your favorite email openings and endings in the comments below. Help me keep the Horde’s chalant-but-kind reputation intact.
Mod R, signing off (with whatever you tell me is cool)
important to note that it’s different in various English speaking countries!
while living in NZ, I fell into the kiwi habit of signing most things “Cheers”. Now back in the states and my professional emails are almost always signed “Thanks”. both are acceptable
I’m not cool. I recently still used kind regards, side eye be damned and anyone can interpret that how they will. but I’m Maori and living in NZ and a few years back realized I can just use ngā mihi and avoid any regards kind of otherwise issues. good luck! go over the top and change to sincerely, bring back the classic.
Personally, I like:
“No trees were killed to send this message, but a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.”
I work for a law firm, when a letter signs off it’s usually “yours very truly” or just “sincerely”. If I’m doing an email I usually just do “Thank you,” or “Thanks in advance,”. I sincerely hate trying to figure out which would be more professional.
I am in the IT, I find I don’t have time for “Good morning” or other pleasantries. I also generally don’t care to start conversations, I just wanna get to the nuts and bolts of what I am emailing about… but if I gotta keep it more professional, I use Good morning/afternoon to start and end with either thank you
My first British boss sent me emails that ended with “Ta.” Took me a couple of years to learn ghat was short for “Thanks” rather than half of “ta-ta.”
Good night and good luck? And that’s the way it is? Hey, it worked for Murrow and Cronkite! Peace. ✌️ Seriously I gave up on sign-offs awhile ago, which kinda turns emails into texts 😊
I thought lol was lots of love. Who knew. Lots of laughs.
What? I shouldn’t sincerely someone. I was raised in the United States. I am so behind the times.
lol means laugh out loud. Just for your information. I am not always very in the loop for text speak either.
Try being 81 years old and keeping up with e-mail trends and interpretations of texting rules🫣🤪
I sign in with hi usually followed by their name but not always. I sign off with thanks.
I used to sign off with cheers but it seemed a bit too informal for work in the last decade lol.
I work at a major financial firm in NYC I both send and receive to / from clients
Best / Best Regards / Kind Regards most often. Legal signs their letters Sincerely
Sign in is Hi or Hello. If writing a cold letter to corporate it is Dear Sir / Madam or Dear Client Services Team etc
Yours truly is never used anymore
For personal comms it depends on the person but Love, Lubbins, Ciao, Cheers or just my name
If others choose to assign a hateful meaning to a benign term that is up to them. They will have to get over it or not write me anymore. Life is too short to deal and spend time worrying about such nonsense. Do what feels right to you 🙂
Can’t go wrong with ending an email with “solidarity,” or “thank you.”
Not help from me here, I also have english as my second language and learn it from reading mostly.
I always found your written word flawless.
It may escape me the second layer of meaning also.
But since this is not a formal email I can say:
kisses hugs and love to you and yours!
Similar to many other non-native speakers i find the whole passive aggressive language which is heavily used in the UK very confusing.
I work with many different nationalities. My italian colleagues use Ciao on both ends of the email. Simple but effective. My UK colleague uses Hi Lea and Cheers. A US coleague closes with Thanks, (even if there was nothing to thank for which i found confusing).
I like to use (whatever kind of) regards. I don’t ever mean it as passive agressive.
What i also like doing is looking what the person sending me the email used and using that “back”. Easy and least offensive in my mind.
If they are like me they are thanking you for taking the time to read the email. It might also be a passive hope for a reply.
Thank you Rita for this explanation. This makes sense!
If it is a friendly colleague, I usually start with Hey (insert name here), and dive right in. I usually end work emails with Thanks, and my professional sign off. If it’s a friend, they may just get my info with no introduction and just my name at the end. For people I don’t know well, it’s Hello Mr./Mrs./Dr., then I identify myself and state my business.
Thanks for the great news!
Must be a British thing, ModR. As far as I know, all of the above that you learned are still in professional use at least. I’ve only been retired two years, so I doubt things have changed that dramatically in the business world. I would get a little more personal with people I’ve worked closely with, of course, but still kept it professional.
On a personal basis, I tailor my salutations and endings to the receiver. Hey how ya doing or a variation there of to begin and bye now, ta, see ya, later, luv ya etc. to end. I would never think to use unhingedly yours, but that sure made me laugh. Might try it 🤣
If it is work related and involves someone higher “up the chain” (this always makes me snicker) or someone I don’t know well, I go with Good Morning or Good Afternoon and close with either Thank you or nothing and my signature line/virtual business card.
If it’s still work but more casual, I’ll go with “Hi Nancy” or just “Hi”. My biggest pet peeve is a group email that requires action but is not addressed to any one specific person. It makes me crazy & I’ve been known to snark at the sender. Like who would you like to answer that, Steve? Me? Nancy?Or the universe?
Lawyer here and an old one at that. When I started emailing for work, it had all the formality of a snailmail letter. Now the convention in my legal circles is to start with Hi and end with regards or best. None of the connotations that you mentioned are prevalent in my sphere and we have all ages and gens sending emails.
I always sign off ‘Thank you, and have a nice day,’ but I am also out of the loop on whether that’s secretly passive-aggressive or not. No one at work has side-eyed me about it so 🤷🏻♀️
I’m a project manager in tech and send work emails all day.
My greeting is Hi or Hello
My signoff is Thanks! or Thank you when asking for something. Otherwise, it’s Best which I like because sounds like “have the day you deserve” in my mind 🤣
I had the misfortune once to be accused of implying foul language in a note to a work colleague. My accuser acknowledged that I had not written any such words but because she heard it in her head, I was to be punished for it. I’m 41, of sound mind, and I use sincerely, yours truly, regards, best wishes, thanks, or whatever else seems appropriate. If it offends someone, that’s a them problem. There’s no possible way to make everyone happy.
If I’m initiating the email I open with hello or Good ____. I close with Thank you or if I know them well Thanks. If I’m responding I open the same way and close with hope this helps, please let me know if you need anything further, etc.
I use AI now to help me write emails. Sometimes, I chat with AI and try things like “that’s good but it should really be happier and more up beat” or give me 5 ways to describe [topic]. I find that if I have to brainstorm quickly then chatting with AI for a minute or two gets ideas flowing. Sometimes the suggestions are amazing and other times not so great. I would not use it for anything important or private but it’s pretty good at helping to phrase internal or office communications. I have not worked with anyone from Gen Z who wrote the way you described, but I work in academia and the communication tends toward adopting formalities. We do see some funny “out of office” emails though.
The most likely to not piss someone off sign off is “with gratitude. ” It helps if there is a moment of sincere thankfulness in the preceeding email. If I’m frustrated or apologetic, I’ll use, “with regret.”
Start it with Hello XX,
End it with Thank you, my name, my contact information
Never put into anything in writing for a business email that you would be embarrassed to read out in court.
Ain’t that the truth!
Actually, I take that further: never put anything into a business email or text or a social media post of any kind that you would be embarassed to have dug up and either read out in court or publicized.
For me at work is just Hello, Hi, or Hey (if there is banter between us) and they all end with Thank you or Thank you in advance.
a study was done that concluded “thanks” and variations of is the sign off most likely to get you a response
for openings, it depends on who I’m talking to. “hey” for a more casual, I -have-a-quick-question. “Hi” when I’m in some grey area. “hello” when I’m introducing myself for the first time
most of my emails are to more than one person, so “Team” is a go-to as well
Formal:
Dear (person to whom I am sending the email)
Body of email
Thank you for your assistance,
Sincerely,
Informal/family:
Hey there!
Body of email
Love or love ya!!
I guess I’m a philistine, because politeness is important, but I don’t really care about someone else’s interpretation problems.
If you’re in England, just say “cheers”. I’ve always smiled when I got that from colleagues across the pond.
I’m an American engineer. I sned lots of emails. Mileage may very.
I start with Hello [Name tripled checked for proper spelling]. if they are on my favorite people ever list they might get a “Hiya”. If I’m responding it might be a “thanks, [name]” or “you’re right, [name]”.
I’m a fan of “Cheers” for a sign off. over here, it’s quite removed from a drinking toast and is just kind of a “I don’t need anything from you but I’m around for follow up.” to me, it’s a bit less final than a “Best” (which to me has an “i-m leaving now” tone). I do use “Regards” occasionally for more formal emails. “happy friday” and “enjoy your weekend” show up as well. I use “thanks” if I need something.
Use what you feel comfortable with. If others don’t like that or misinterpret it, it is their problem, not yours.
What you start/end with will be culturally/age dependent and you won’t be able to please everyone.
Hi X,
Warmly,
Bec
Is how I usually start/sign off email for work. “Cheers” or “Thanks” also get a run depending on the email content.
I’m in Australia if that makes a difference.
For me, it depends on who I’m writing and what I want. You’re almost always safe with the time of day—
Good morning Kate (as an aside, I’m still stuck on whether or not morning should be capitalized). Good afternoon/evening also works, or you can borrow from the Aussies and just “Good Day” everybody, though they might run theirs together like “Gdday”. Don’t quote me.
I stick away from (that looks weird written out) sirring or ma’amming people these days. Unless they have their pronouns listed, it’s best to just use their name.
And if you’re writing to someone but you don’t exactly know who, there’s always the old standby of “To Whom It May Concern”. That or the basic good whatever without a name attached.
In closing, I always write something like “Thank You” or “Regards”.
If I’m really laying it on thick, I hit ’em with the “Kindest Regards”. It’s like a warm word hug but without the actual touching. It’s nice.
That said, I’m a Millennial, so grain of salt with literally everything I just said. I send emails all day though, and I have yet to hear any complaints.
Oh no, I’ve been mailing my kid’s teachers this whole quarter since we moved to the States, opening with “Dear ….” and ending with “Kind regards, ” how badly have I been swearing at those lovely people?!
Honestly, it’s overblown.
I attach no specific meaning to “regards”, warm or otherwise. “Sincerely” is a tad old-fashioned, but not Office Space levels of passive aggressive.
A good sign off is a simple “Thanks!” (if you asked for something/reminded someone that they need to do something). “Take care” (or “Have a good/great afternoon/day/weekend”, “happy [holiday]”, “looking forward to working with you on this”, etc.
After a certain point, if someone continuously reads snark into your sign offs even though you’re otherwise courteous, that’s on them.
But what do I know? I regularly “per our last conversation/my last email/your request” my boss all the time. She’s a nightmare of an insecurely incompetent micromanager and if I didn’t remind her that she told me to do X instead of Y, she’d blame me for having done it. (She blames me for having done X instead of Z anyway- usually a few months after she says ‘good job on X, but why did you do that instead of Y?’) If I didn’t use formality, I’d use profanity out of sheer rage.
For the longest time I used “Greetings and Salutations!” and when managing a store I would occasionally greet customers with that too… I apparently had sent an email to someone and greeted them that way and they were like “ohhhh that’s how you REALLY talk isn’t it?!” and I chose to take that as an amused compliment.
I have occasionally signed off with “Godspeed” though that’s not always taken well.
Someone I know signs off with “at your service,” but they are most assuredly not that so I read it with snark. :/
I start off with aloha and I end with just my name. I’ve been sending email for 30 years and I don’t follow trends.
PS: I hate “best” all by itself as best is an adjective and it needs a noun. Best what?! You might as well just end an email with “very.“
I love your writing Mod R! I’m Customer Success in IT for “lots” of years now and emails are essential in my line of work. For work emails, it’s Hello, Hi, Good Morning/Evening… depending on the recipient. My sign off is always “Thanks”, then my name. The only time I really change that is if I’m sending a more formal email, or if I’m flexing to highlight my title. Then it’s “Sincerely”. 🙂 Personal emails are usually just to family so I sign off with “Love” mostly, and “Thanks” for all the rest. Also, in personal emails I tend to type like I talk. When my wording is concise or direct that means you’ve probably gotten me mad so I censor my word usage. (& I agree with the comments above that state walk away when you are upset and rewrite when you aren’t emotionally charged before sending!) Thank you for the update on GA! As a proud horde member I’ll try really hard to be patient. Hah!
My email brain is wired for business writing so I’m sure some would take offense. I tend to take a formal tone for clarity. Luckily I do not email friends often. That is why I have FB and texting
Oh, wow; oh wow; oh WOW!!! A twenty-something co-worker at a recent job repeatedly went off on me at 99 decibels, accusing me of being “passive aggressive” on the phone or otherwise interacting with customers. I thought he needed better meds. Now I’m asking myself, “Did he have a point???” Or, maybe, “a POINT???”
Who went and changed the whole language while I wasn’t looking?????
No, he didn’t have a point. If you were addressing customers in a professionally polite manner and tone of voice on the phone, you were doing your job.
If a customer complains to you that you are being “passive aggressive”, then you address that. Otherwise, it is not a problem and your younger colleague (who is or was not your supervisor if I read this correctly) should mind his own work and not try to do yours.
Frankly, for every young customer who might think your tone was “passive aggressive”, there would probably be ten older ones who would have considered your co-worker was being an overly familiar little snot…
I’ve been starting with “Hi xxxx, I hope you are well. Blah blah blah” if its a client I haven’t communicated with in a while. Today an acquaintance ranted on Facebook about how they hate “I hope this email find you well” because “Its lazy” and only AIs write that. I was quite chagrined, since I’ve been doing it for years. And I never use AI for writing communications. I also most often text in complete sentences with punctuation. I have also been told by my teens that using periods conveys anger. But I refuse to stop using punctuation – they can figure it out.
“Using periods conveys anger” … Who knew?
I always thought a period was a punctuation mark intended to show where one complete sentence ended and another began. Its purpose was to improve communication by breaking up endless “walls of text” into coherent thoughts for ease of reading.
But it actually conveys anger?
I suppose this is what happens when people try to express themselves using emojis instead of “using their words”. Huh!
Yay Team Punctuation! If Today’s Youth think punctuation and full sentences are only for angry people, so be it. I will then feel free to shake my metaphorical cane and judge them for laziness and/or rudeness in leaving out punctuation when it takes so little time to add – unlike us earlier generations, they have predictive text and don’t have to multi-press actual buttons on their phone for each character, or even (gasp) put ink onto paper and pay for stamps.
That being said, the one time I wouldn’t use a full stop is after a single-word “thanks” – I think “Thanks.” sounds kind of sarcastic, so would either leave the punctuation off or use an exclamation mark.
lol, I emailed my HOA front desk, started it with “To whom it may concern”, signed with my name and phone number. They replied with “To whom it may concern” knowing full well who they were addressing. le sigh.
Ooooo they SASSY. The temptation to reply with “To whom it may concern, along with Jessica” (or whoever signed the last email) would be STRONG.
le sigh indeeeeed.
I use Hi or Hello informally.
I sign off with Yours in calendrical heresy (thanks Yoon Ha Lee) because I love it. Informally. Formally, usually, Thanks or Thanks for your attention.
stay safe
As a native speaker of English of (I think) a similar age to Mod R, I can report that I too was taught to write formal letters with Dear Sir/Madam and Yours sincerely. I’m not going to blanket recommend any openings/closings, because as far as I can tell EVERY possible opening/closing has one group of passionate advocates and one group of “I’ve never been so insulted” haters. However, given I live in a country which is trying to revive its original language (pre-colonisation), and most of my jobs have been related to public services, I have saved a number of lists of Work-Approved Email Greetings/Signoffs in the non-English language, so I can feel reasonably safe in selecting from those for my work emails.
Sidenote – as an autistic person I will just say emojis are my enemy because who the heck knows what they mean anymore, there isn’t even a dictionary!
The problem with this is you are living in England, where they create their own rules, that don’t even follow the established rules for the rest of the English speaking email writing world. As an American living in England I was also hit with the “major” difference between Kind Regards and Regards.
Apparently, Kind Regards is polite and Regards is code for please die in a fire 🙂
I grew up speaking English and I was still totally lost on this hidden language of email etiquette, so I gave up Oh well. I think for England Kind Regards and Best Wishes are the safest. I shudder to think what an old school English person would say if I signed off an email with XOXOXO and didn’t know them personally
I use Hi, for the greeting and Thanks, to end the email.
Good morning ModR!
Blather, blather
Kind regards (if I feel kindly)
Regards (if I don’t)
Keep well/warm/healthy/safe (for a slightly more personal touch)
Lynda
“My teachers, who’d never even met a native English speaker, drilled into me the importance of ‘Dear Sir/Madam‘ and ‘Yours Sincerely‘ from textbooks older than my mother. In my culture, formality means politeness. ”
No, but this so real, i cant TT_TT
In Germany, we are quite formal as well. So there‘s quite a difference between really formal/beaurocratic, business and informal.
When trying for funny and informal, I often end mails with ‚don‘t sein out too far‘, ‚keep your ears up straight‘ or ‚please don‘t sell the home world while I am gone‘.
That‘s as funny as I get.
Miss Manners would be appalled at how basic politeness has been bastardized into a landmine of passive aggression. I don’t understand how people simply get to decide that a word or phrase suddenly means something different. Maybe it has something to do with tone of voice that isn’t transfered to written word.
People who think standard phrases are offensive are choosing to be offended. like Gen z thinks a thumbs up emoji is the same as flipping the bird. Thumbs up has been used for decades before Gen z was born so being offended is a choice.
Bridget – You speak my mind! Who is the we that gets to make these sweeping choices. If you make the choice that basic politeness creates a certain tone, then it will be misconstrued, but if that effort were put into landing on putting some effort into giving grace and extending kindness, it seems the way to go -all the way around, for email and for conversation. It is true that sometimes I slip in a, “Have a lovely day,” and I don’t mean it with my whole heart – but most of the time I am really trying for a positive exchange and a level above basic politeness.
Anyway, air kiss to your “basic politeness has been bastardized into a landmine of passive aggression” phraseology.
As I sometimes tell my cat, “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice!”
Oh well – cats. You haven’t truly been dissed until your cat has shaken his hind leg at you as he stalks away in a regally offended huff.
um…I am maybe just An Old. I do Best Regards or Thanks.
I use Good morning, or Good afternoon
Then end with Thank you!
I was born in Canada so I am a native English speaker. I am 62 and I did not know any of the things you wrote were anything other than polite. I have generally used “love” for family, “take care” for friends and close colleagues, and “thanks” for emails that are requesting information or favours from anyone. I don’t know what’s wrong with sincerely or regards. Those sound fine to me! Clearly I too am a product of my upbringing. Maybe Canadians are polite in email too?
It’s all ‘Regards’ or ‘Kind regards’ in Office-Land, Australia – unless it’s ‘Many thanks’. But Office-Land is more formal than other non-officey workplaces I’ve been in, so YMMV.
Another Canadian DM here (imagine my surprise that there are 2 of us in the horde!). I usually open with ‘hi’, or ‘good morning/afternoon’ if I don’t know the recipient as well. I usually end with ‘thanks’ cause we Canadians are uber polite, eh? I figure thanks can mean thanks for doing what I just asked or just thanks for reading. If I’ve really asked for a whopper it might be ‘many thanks’.
Yes! I open with Hi name, and end with thanks, my name. Thanks is just a polite way to close because as you said, it thanks them at bare minimum for reading the email.
I usually use proper punctuation, grammar and spelling for clarity.
My pet peeve is when I take the time to make a list of questions that I need answers for, and the person responding hits reply after reading the first sentence and ignores the rest. This is so common these days!
I’m British and I start with ‘Dear’ if I’m being fairly formal (followed by ‘Dr Lastname’ or Firstname, depending on how formal), or ‘Hi’ if I’m being informal (or ‘Hello’ if that’s how the other person has addressed me. I have recently gravitated to finishing with ‘Cheers’ as my all-purpose ending (followed by my firstname, but for work stuff that’s then follwed by my full name, degrees, job title etc.) I’ll sometimes use ‘Kind regards’ if I’m being formal, and ‘Thanks!’ or ‘Many thanks’ if asking someone for a bit of a favour, or to indicate that I know they are doing something for me. I no longer use ‘Yours sincerely’ or ‘Yours faithfully’ unless in a VERY formal situation (e.g. a complaint or legal letter).
I’ve been noting country-based differences as well – so French and German-speaking colleages will write to me as ‘Dear Ms Lastname, even though I have ‘Dr’ at the start of my name and my degrees, including ‘PhD’ after, and my prefered pronouns as she/her/Dr – which should be a clue. Conversely -I- was taught to ALWAYS use ‘Dr’ if someone has a doctorate or a medical degree* (more recently, and always for Americans, also if a veterinary degree), or if you weren’t sure, because the worst you yould do was flatter someone (if they didn’t yet have a doctorate) – and even if they should be ‘Prof.’ they probably wouldn’t be too annoyed by ‘Dr.’.
*[Except for surgeons who have reached Consultant level, with Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons in the UK – they revert to Mr or Mrs.]
I’ve been using “Cheers” to sign off on my work emails for years and I’ve yet to hear a complaint. I also refuse to consider if it’s appropriate or not. Ilike it and that’s that.
I use a lot of Hello X,
In closing, it depends on the response I want. I hope to hear from you soon or Respectfully are common ones. Sometimes I just sign my name.
I often use Hey to start my emails (or just the person’s name), and I close with Best. My GenZ kid closes with Kindly, which baffles me. Good luck!
I’ve mostly used “regards” or “best” but now reading these comments, I think I’m going to try “cheers” for a while. It hasn’t been in my email repertoire before, but I’m liking the sound of it. Of course, I’m retired, so nobody really cares how I sign my emails.
My 30 yo daughter always signs off with
Bye
See Ya
TTYL (Talk to you later)
Later
I always end with Thanks or Respectfully
When responding to customers I use this as the base template for first contact.
Hi Mod R, Thanks for your email. Body content here. Kind Regards, Variel.
If reaching out to a customer it’s this template instead.
Hi Mod R, Hope you are well. Body content here. Kind Regards, Variel.
If I’m feeling spicy including a Have a lovely day/afternoon/evening if the issue is resolved. Usually it’s just being polite, sometimes it’s bless your heart south US style. If or it’s the first or last day of the week I’ll substitute Hope you had a lovely weekend or Have a lovely weekend where appropriate.
Work recently assigned me a copilot licence, it’s Microsoft’s version of ChatGPT like AI using internal work data as the source, because I’m too blunt, I’ve been instructed to use it to formalise and soften my tone, it’s been a life saver.
For personal stuff I stick to my to the point normal style of talking.
I either don’t use an email greeting or just use Hello!
I sign off with thanks,
I’m a millennial if that goes into the equation. I could never write hope this email doesn’t find you lol
American millennial here: I typically go with good morning/afternoon/evening and thanks. I work in a science field so keeping track of who is a doctor and who isn’t gets confusing so I quit using the Mr./Mrs./Dr. etc a while back. I occasionally will close with have a good one, but I think that’s more of a regional one. I switch to regards if someone has pissed me off lol
Family, friends and quick work emails don’t get a salutation and sometimes they get nothing more than my name or just M.
More formally at work it’s usually Good morning or good afternoon. Sometimes Dear, depending on the age of the recipient.
I sign off with Peace! Or Peace and all Good. And more rarely, Pax et bonum.
I am old, so feel free to give my habits the side-eye! I open with “Good morning!” (afternoon/evening), using the exclamation point to conveniently avoid the choice between a comma (boring) and a colon (harsh, formal).
Typically, I use “Thanks!” instead of sincerely, best/best wishes, etc. if “Thanks ” is contextually inappropriate, I may just sign off with my first name and nothing else.
I’m looking forward to learning the modern usages from all you young whippersnappers in The Horde!
I usually end my work emails with:
Thanks,
Jody
It can be sincere, or as sarcastic as I want, and no one will know out in Internetland!
Hey NAME,
email blather
Cheers!
Chef Shelley
p.s. but I’m gen X so your mileage may vary
Absolutely with you there. I’m 60 years old and learned English the old way. In school. In the 70ties and 80ties. And I still have no idea how to start and end my letters and E-Mails ‘correctly’. Certainly there are also differences between English and American English? So curious.
Wowsers, I am so behind the times. There is no hope of me catching up.
If I were in your shoes, I think I would be tempted to invent House of Andrews specific closings and consider it branding, such as, “Looking forward to seeing you in Baha Char.” I am thinking, “May your magic always be up” may not be a good choice though.
Going back to living in the dark ages.
I think you’re overthinking this. Every age group does things differently. What I do is start an email with “Hi [name] and end with “Thanks” and my name below it.
This explains so much! I answer emails for a dance studio my kids own and emails that I find perfectly reasonable have infuriated my 40 year old child.
Then yesterday one of my teenage grandchildren told me “Nanny, don’t use periods in texts.” That was after she told me that her sentences were all run ons on purpose. (I had been saying we needed to work on sentence mechanics.)
I usually open with:
Good (time of day)
or
(Name)
and end with “Thank you” or just my name.
Depending on how often I have corresponded with the parents.
My child the business owner uses:
Dance Families,
and ends with
Keep dancin’
My favorite email sign-off was from an old Astronomy professor of mine:
“Clear Skies”
I use Good Morning First Name, and then Let me know if you have any additional questions, MyName If we’ve been emailing a couple times on the same thing, it gradually moves to just their first name, and nothing for a closing.
This whole thread makes me anxious. I’m GenX, when did polite written responses become this passive aggressive thing??!! No, polite is polite. And I agree with Mod R, the older or more above me in an organization, the more polite I am out of respect. I raised two GenZ kids, and they are polite as well, so maybe it’s specific corporate culture in certain size companies?
Dear Mod R,
I think you must be my age. My spouse and children and maybe many others laugh at me, or worse, feel the wrong message is being sent, because I punctuate my text messages. I was raised in a time where punctuation assisted in clarity and can’t bring myself not to do it. My neutral/safe sign off has been either Best regards, or Very best regards (if I think they might miss the tone or need extra fuzzies). . . or the friendly Cheers, when amongst friends. Now I wonder what connotations I am missing or judgement I am creating. Sigh.
Cheers,
Out of the cultural loop, but mostly still happy to be coached along
I’m Southern to my core and politeness rules. I use Dear xxx, Sincerely, and Thank You a LOT.
Late Boomer here. I speak American English. I don’t like email communication much and your comments reinforce this. I’m polite and sincere with no hidden messages. (I also text with complete sentences and punctuation). So I’m a dinosaur! I also write notes in cursive.
It’s very difficult to understand these perceived negative interpretations of perfectly innocuous greetings.
I’m a Librarian. I begin my emails with Hi or Dear or Hello. I sign them with my professional signature line for the library or for the other organizations in which I am an officer. Sometimes, I just sign Love you, Mom for my son. 🙂
I don’t care what other people do. Now I get people dissing on me for writing Hi or Hello and Bye in texts. I’m trying not to do that now. 😀
I have never heard of any of this email stuff. Is it a British thing? I just sign mine “thanks” and call it a day. If someone wants to read something extra into that, it’s on them.
Yay for Graphic Audio! So excited for Blood Heir, too.
depends who I am writing to. if it is a friend, I generally just use their name with a hyphen, on new lines write the message, on the last line I put my name, like
–
blah blah blah
if it is more formal, I might write
Dear . if it is to a company, to whom it may concern.
blah blah
regards,
I never use warmest regards or the like, would use something more personal if it is someone I know, like With my best wishes or love.
I tend to take thing as written, unless context tells me that they don’t wish me luck or best wishes from the time.
I worked in local government here in MD, USA (not Federal government, but one step down). I was a secretary. I worked in one of the highest offices (right under the executive, which is basically the “president” of the local government for lack of better explanation). I had to send out a massive amount of emails every day.
For more formal emails with someone I didn’t know I would always start with “Good morning Mr/Mrs so-and-so,” (or Good afternoon/evening/whatever). Towards the end of my career (I retired in 2024) I was a bit unsure of using “Mr/Mrs” because a)gender fluidity and b)not every name is easy to decipher for gender and what if they are non-binary? So, I was struggling with that a bit.
For signing off on an email – I always kept it super simple. “Thank you!” or “Thanks!” The amount of !!! depended on how much of a favor it was LOL!! I know it wasn’t the “best” or “most professional” way of signing off, but honestly, I didn’t care. As long as the email was professional and got my message across with no misspelling.
Born and raised in the US and I use all the closings you do. Except for “bless your heart”, which I love, I refuse to see a mean interpretation in any closing I receive or use.
Oof, Mod R over here bringing out the sign off discussion 🙂
Honestly, and this may seem harsh, but I’m too tired to worry about it.
As a millennial (or xennial, or geriatric millennial or whatever most recent name they’ve come up with for those of us between 80-85), take my best wishes or regards how you want to. I am polite, always, but it’s an email, I am not pressed over a sign off. I learned email etiquette in the Navy, so mostly mine are all very polite but blunt. Now polite is being harsh? I’m tired, y’all.
Nowadays I work with Europeans, and largely eastern Europeans, so they are very straight forward about things. Which is a blessing, I love them!
I’m excited for the GA White Hot!
I may be out of touch as well, but I end my formal emails with ‘yours truly’ or ‘sincerely,’ etc. In my informal correspondence, I just put my initial T
I open with “Hey” or “Hey Folks” depending on singular or plural.
I usually don’t close with anything other than my intial “D” unless I’m really pissed, in which case I’ll close with “Blessings”
D
I don’t even use a sign off phrase anymore. Name, position, company, contact info (and basically the same for personal emails). If I did, I’d go with my standby “Sincerely” and if someone thinks I want to hit them with a chair because of it…well…no comment, lol.
Also, being from Georgia, USA, I read the title of this post as White Hot Georgia Preorder and thought wow, they do know our weather!
My sign off tends to be “thanks” or “take care”. Mostly “thanks” because the likelyhood of me e-mailing someone who is not close enough for it to sign off with “love” and it not being me requesting something of them is slim.
Greeting tends to just be their name, or “Hi!”
Hi!
My greeting is always “Hi,” or “Hi [name],” — unless to one of my sibs, then I am free to be me “Hey Ho” “Howdy” “Hello, is anyone out there?”
My closing is usually “Thanks” but sometimes “Cheers” or “Kind regards” or “Best to you and yours”
As to emojis, I explained to my husband that I use emojis in my texts so if he’s driving he can just look at the symbols and get the main idea. I also tell him if he gets a text from me with no emojis at all, then either I am dying or mad.
Thanks!
Being also one of those ancients – I do use – with best regards, sincerely etc
For friends it is just -(first name) without anything added unless it is a snarky comment about this fog bound area on the US West Coast.
There are times I would love to be back in Europe, even with having to deal with the grammar associated with genders, cases, and verbs being delayed to the the end of the sentence.
100% agree with being yourself. Unless I’m writing to an executive, I avoid these minefields by using a Latin signoff. My favorite use of a “dead” language.
Occasionally, someone will say “I had to Google your signature, I had no idea what it meant, that’s so cool/such an “Anna” thing/weird but okaaay.”
Examples:
Cura ut valeas! — “Take care that you be well”.
Vale! — be well
Gen X American here, for what that’s worth. I don’t have a clue what Gen Z understands from words, so if it comes up I ask my 27-y-o coworker. But for my own habits, I have always been a plain speaker and say what I mean. I used to sign all my work emails “With respect”, which generated some goodwill among our clients. But we did a rebrand in 2014 with designed email signatures so I had to give that up. I’m careful to say thanks in just about every professional message I send.
In personal use, I am less formal but still more formal than most of my peers, I suspect. I use periods and complete sentences out of habit, though I do leave off the former in texts much of the time since I have heard about the connotation and they often aren’t necessary. My main goal is to communicate clearly, and I’ve always been frustrated by how often people assume the less benign interpretation of something when it was not meant that way at all.
This seems like the perfect opportunity to ask what I’ve seen in books and wanted to know for years:
1. what is ‘side eye’ ?
2. what is a sh*t eating grin?
3. I was going to ask what does it mean when someone’s eyes ‘widened’? But my teenager has just explained it
Thanks in advance,
Yours, agedly,
y
“Side eye” is when you look at someone askance, or with a look that wonders ‘what the heck are you doing?’ Generally referring to when people are out in public and they keep their faces pointed forward but they look at you out of the ‘side’ of their eye. 👀 <there’s even an emoji. It can convey feelings of frustration, suspicion, and disgust depending on context.
A “sh*t eating grin” is when a person knows that they have one-upped you or won in the face of the other’s adversity. It’s somewhat immature in the sense that you might see it when a younger sibling wins an argument with an older one. The emotion being conveyed by the one grinning is that the one that lost should “eat sh*t.” It’s like a tyrannically gleeful grin. Can also be used by someone to good affect after a hard battle and they finally defeat the enemy.
Others probably have more to say about this, but those have been my understandings
Thank you Rose.
I feel a bit of an idiot now, like this should have been obvious.
And on-topic, I asked the only one of my colleagues who is under 30 about addressing and signing off written comms. He replied that he doesn’t write to people (email or otherwise). Says it all.
I would never have guessed you weren’t a native English speaker, Mod R! You have an excellent flair for writing in English.
I need help with this issue too as I’m Gen X and my cohort was pretty formal. “All the best” is typical for non friend interactions, also “kind regards” for more formal, but it does sound courtly. “Best,” works but seems like you’re rushing. Looking forward to reading the Horde’s replies!
Generally I start
Hello X, or “to whom it concerns” or “team” because I send regular emails to inboxes that are for groups of people where the person who is “on” at that moment is the one who responds. I use “cheers” or “Thanks” to close often. However, if it’s someone I know well or am friendly with my closings have ranged from “From under a mountain of tissues” (I was sick) to “by your herbal essence.” So it really just depends
‘Cheers’ is a good sign off I feel. Unless I’m raging then it’s ‘I look forward to hearing from you’ all the way!!
I usually just sign off with “Cheers” so I too am anachronistic.
Oh. My dear Mod R., I’m the last person to offer you this advice, as I’m woefully stuck in the “Dear Sirs” era. I’m also usually writing something formal in academia, so there is that. Grammarly can help. It often helps to an annoying degree. One thing I have used fairly regularly in the past when signing an email to friends is “Pax.” Of course, I could then be construed as having visions of Roman conquest. Best Regards works in some more formal cases. I suppose any recent publication for College Freshman Composition I would have the salutations and signature etiquette for emails. It’s a jungle out there, and I, for one, tend to rely on my trusty equivalent of a Winchester rifle rather than try any new-fangled semi-automatic pistols when it comes to this issue.
Openings depend on how well I know them. “Hi Mod R!” Seems to work for someone I don’t know well, but am feeling friendly towards.
But closings seem to be the stinging nettle of correspondence. They look innocuous but always irritate someone. I just leave them off now.
Uh oh, I didn’t know my email opening and closing was the equivalent of the southern ‘bless your heart’
I use:
To Name or Job Title
Kind regards
As my opening and closing. SMH