People on Twitter are getting witty about the traditions that have developed over the decades that humanity has used e-mail, and how funny and ridiculous many of these traditions look from the point of view of elementary common sense. And indeed, after all, a significant part of these traditions originated back in the '90s, when the world and the internet were completely different. By the way, here you can check how different literally everything was in those days.
Yes, the first prototypes of email go back to a much more distant past - in the '60s, when two MIT employees, Noel Morris and Tom Van Vleck, wrote the first mailing software ever. But until the second half of the '90s, when Hotmail first appeared, and then, a few months later, Yahoo Mail, email was still largely the preserve of a small audience of computer geeks. And then, in 2004, Gmail appeared - and emailing finally took shape, similar to its modern form.
Of course, over a long time (and even twenty years in the fast-paced contemporary world - that's a hell of a lot!) email has acquired many peculiar etiquette rules, especially with regard to greetings and signoffs. "Most consider it poor etiquette to start an email by diving directly into the message. An email without a greeting is like starting a conversation without acknowledging the other person first. Selecting the best email greeting sets the tone for the rest of the email and influences how they read the remaining content," Indeed's article on choosing a proper greeting states.
A proper signoff is considered no less important - for example, Forbes even devoted a whole longread to the analysis of this topic, offering no less than 57 different variants of signoffs. However, for those who don't like to read a lot, here are four ground rules from Cynthia Lett, a business etiquette consultant in Silver Spring, MD:
1. Don't include quotes.
2. Avoid oversized corporate logos.
3. Include your title and contact info, but keep it short.
4. Do include some kind of sign-off.
Perhaps the fourth point is really the most important, don't you think?
On the other hand, you should not be like that old Briton with whom I began my narrative. After all, the unassuming form can always hide some truly unique content, so please make sure to read your emails. In the meantime, please scroll this selection to the very end and enjoy the most amusing pieces of email-related humor that Bored Panda has carefully selected for you on Twitter, and maybe share your own wit in the comments as well.
