How to use this Page

In this age of email and text messaging, I realize that it is all too easy to get lazy with proper usage of the English language and with communicating habits as well. I vow to improve upon my email etiquette from this moment forward. Our children will be communicated via email for years to come as well, so we should teach them a few rules.

Here are some things that turn me off that emailers do:

1. Not responding to an email. When a question is asked, or it is obvious more info is needed, it is polite to answer- even if yours is a personal email.
2. Not proofreading. Grammar and spelling so horrid that I cannot even tell what the writer is saying is unacceptable.
3. Too many abbreviations. EM LOL BIDNKWYARS. (I am laughing out loud, but I don’t know what you are really saying.)
4. Not getting to the point. Rambling on an on is not an effective way to communicate. People are busy and they want to know what you are trying to say quickly.
5. Humongous attachments. No one wants to receive a file that will take up 50% of the computer’s hard drive.
6. Writing in all CAPITAL LETTERS. This is very hard to read.
7. Using a teeny tiny font. This is also hard to read.
8. Not using a subject, or using one that has nothing to do with the email or putting the entire message in the subject heading and writing no copy.
9. Sending a mass email and listing dozens of other email addresses in the TO window, so that all recipients get all the email addresses. It is better to put the addresses in the BC window, so that recipients do not get all those other addresses, which may be confidential.
10. Forwarding my confidential email to a 3rd party. It is best to not send confidential emails for that very reason.
11. Sending emails that should really only be telephone conversations. If there are may paragraphs or a need for countless replies back and forth, a phone call can handle the situation better and save precious time.
12. Chain letters. “If you delete this letter and do not pass it on to 200 friends, your left arm will fall off at midnight.” I don’t think so.
13. Urban Legend emails. “Don’t flash your lights at oncoming traffic to warn them they do not have their lights on. The person in the car will think this is a signal for you to pull over and sell drugs to their gang members.” These nonsense emails are my least favorite. If you get one, just goggle the topic and put in urban legend or scam, and you can get the truth right away. Then tell the sender to check out the scam site too.
14. SPAM of any kind. I wish for Spammers to have total computer blowout.

I am sure many of you out there are annoyed with the same issues. If so, start to teach your kids to reply promptly and politely. Some day all too soon, they will learn about our emailing frustrations as well.

By Anatoly Liberman

I have once written about ragamuffin and its kin, including Italian ragazzo “boy,” which I think is a member of that extended family. Dealing with rag-devils had inured me to the dangers of demonology. (Pay attention to the alliteration. I am so used to writing notes on literary texts that I could not pass by my own sentence without a comment.) Those who know who Puck is remember him from Shakespeare. He is a mischievous sprite in Elizabethan comedy, and the modern adjective puckish also refers to mischief. Folklorists have studied this character extensively; among others, there is a book titled The Anatomy of Puck. Now that Puck has been dismembered, a historical linguist can fearlessly approach his body and draw a few tentative conclusions. (more…)

Share This