DEAR Jasminda,

I am always confused about the appropriate sign off in an email.

There are so many options, and none of them feels quite right.

What do you recommend?

Yours, Mr Andrew G.

 

Dear Andrew,

Well, for a start, I wouldn’t sign off an email to a person you don’t know as ‘yours’.

I mean, you’re not mine, are you?

There’s a fair degree of intimacy suggested in that sign off, or else a bit of laziness due to hacking off the ‘sincerely’ or ‘faithfully’.

It’s a good question though, and one that I already spend far too much time thinking about, so thank you for extending my convoluted ruminations.

Do we have to reply with a kiss ‘x’, if that is how the sender has signed off?

Are sign offs such as ‘cheers’ far more suited to time spent around a beer keg than the end of an email letting you know your sales report is overdue?

Recently I read a delightful letter penned from an upset young girl to her family, which she had taped to her closed bedroom door.

It was signed off, with wisdom and acuity beyond her years, ‘Unhappy regards’.

I suggested to her mother that I was tempted to sign off on all correspondence in this way, and then added a few more suggestions: Sincerely disappointed; Cheerless; Unkind regards; Yours unfaithfully.

Her mother added a few more: Sincerely someone else’s; Without love; Disapprovingly.

Now surely these are far more appropriate for correspondence relating to unpaid bills, updates to terms of service, relationship breakdowns, and bonus Flybuys points notifications, among other examples.

Or you could just go with some obnoxious Latin phrase that gives people false hope and visions of grandeur.

Carpe diem, Jasminda.