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I find it so annoying. How am I supposed to reply to this? How am I supposed to know which of them I am dealing with?
AFAIAC business email can only come from one person, or perhaps they actually type alternate letters on the keyboard? Does anyone else get annoyed by this or is it just me being a crotchety old B?
AFAIAC business email can only come from one person
Nah, I'm more bugged by people who use obscure acronyms that I have to look up :) I thought it had to do with insurance.
Why can't a communication come from several people. I see that sometimes on an important letter that is signed by a company executive and the CEO, to show it was approved at the highest level. Books are often collaborations, movies too.
Do you wonder whether Ben OR Jerry made that ice cream?
They should not write singular and sign off plural.
[edited by: BeeDeeDubbleU at 2:00 pm (utc) on Sep. 7, 2008]
Jim
Solution - charge double the rate!
Good idea!
AFAIAC business email can only come from one person, or perhaps they actually type alternate letters on the keyboard? Does anyone else get annoyed by this or is it just me being a crotchety old B?
My husband and I do write letters occasionally together and sign both our names. Usually is has to do with school stuff for our kids. Many books, articles, screen plays, songs etc. have coauthors, why not letters?
Look, when a couple envisage themselves as a bi-personal entity, that's a beautiful and precious thing in a sad, individualistic world.
Let them be, you auld curmudgeon.
Or when customers in Spain sign Maria Juana Patricia Angeles Fernandez Domingo and I do not have a clue where the first names end and the family name starts. Or if all the names even belong to one person or if its 6 persons or three or whatever.
Maria Juana Patricia Angeles Fernandez Domingo
What a concidence, I know Maria too! ;)
My point is that if it comes from two people it should say "We would like" and "Can we have", etc. :(
They should not write singular and sign off plural.
... "bi-personal entity" - is that the modern-day version of "being of two minds" ?
"curmudgeon"
Wahoo! that's a word with lots of potential ;)
I have a few customers who send mail that way, usually a sig file added to all outgoing messages, over time I have sent a few different, maybe even sarcastic replies such as
Hellos
Hi Guys
To 2 people from one person
As someone stated above, I have sent 2 replies with 2 different questions, that gets them on the phone, and yes, whoever holds the phone seems to be asking the boss (usually her in doors) every question I ask, sounds like an echo sometimes, my response then is to wait when there's a longish silence and reply
Oh, your talking to me?
How am I supposed to reply to this?
maybe Bob IS Jenny at night?
Hahahaha.
From Glen (and Glenda)
When people send something to me signed like that, it instantly conjures an image of bimmer driving Yuppy couples in matching Ralph Lauren outfits. The kind of couple desperately in need of a Darwinian adjustment.
Signed: Grelmar
Taking curmudgeon to the next level
Love from Bob, Jenny, Alistair, Pixie Frou Frou, Rover, Tiddles and Tyson(The goldfish)
The other thought was that insecure people might sign a letter that way, reinforcing in their minds that they're together.
One of the reasons I do it is that I've noticed at places like the school they take things more seriously if my husband's name is any requests, too. I know it sounds like it shouldn't matter, but it really is more effective.
I 100% agree on the "we're pregnant" being irritating. But personally I think it is okay to reply to something like a college counseling meeting email addressed to both parents with a "Yes, thanks for your time. We will both be there." signed John and Jane Doe.
If there were a nice way to point out the professional laxity they might instantly 'get it' - simply never realizing how it comes across to the recipient. (Or maybe they view the relationship as closer than it really is.) I/we get emails regularly from people that must think that they are our only customer, because they give us nothing to work with and we literally have to respond and ask for a full name, account number, invoice number - something.)
So long as curmudgeon is in tonight, I don't care for 'professional' emails that just launch into the topic. I like to be addressed. First-name, or Full Name, - whatever is most appropriate.
In part, it depends upon the relationship. For almost all professional correspondence I close with my full name and whichever website/business I am representing. (Maybe a phone number as well if you or the situation rates that.) Very regular contacts, people that I deal with all the time, staff - they all get a:
DB
That's all they need to know. Handle it.
I don't have one fixed signature. What you get depends upon who you are and our relationship. That especially includes the closing statement or salutation; an underrated and underused tool of expressing a parting attitude - a couple/three words that can have the power of a terse paragraph or glowing review.
I am very guilty of the we/I issue myself though, and sometimes (often) use them interchangeably in an email. We indicates the company/operation and is something of the 'imperial' we - since it d... well means I. And yet, when writing an email I sometimes want to make clear that 'I' is not just me - that 'we' have a lot on the line with you - delivery, price, delay..... (You personally and your company - you and y'all:))
I don't see what the big deal is in replying together. Then the recipient knows we have both read and acknowledged the letter.
No, that was my whole point. If a letter or email is signed with both names and written in the first person singular then clearly only one of them wrote it. Which?
A dual "response" works fine in print because the separate signature blocks and signature make plain each person really has signed off on the response. That is absolutely not the case with email (Barring those who send along a video showing both parties taking turns to type.)
There are cultural differences at play here, but where I am there is a major difference between a legally recognisable partnership and a private marriage. When partners/officers/authorised representatives of the first use "we" they bind the others. Marriage partners do not.
Hence
Dear M,
We can meet tomorrow at 10.
Freda and Fred
- I cannot be the only person who's ever listened (second-hand) to terse husband and wife cell-phone arguments about who was responsible for knowing the letter behind the fridge magnet - that appears to have slipped down and got kicked under the fridge sometime last week - was an appointment time for which one of them is now deemed "late"?
What I never get is why this is too difficult:
Dear X,
Fred has now confirmed tomorrow at 10 at your office is OK, so we'll meet you then."
signed Freda
But this intrigued me:
I've noticed at places like the school they take things more seriously if my husband's name is any requests, too. I know it sounds like it shouldn't matter, but it really is more effective.
Country-specific issue here, but where I am, make that statement to the school board (elected people, usually ordinary parents) and they would immediately investigate for gender-based or social-status-based discrimination.
It is too subtle to be investigated. I think it is simply an ingrained part of the neighborhood subculture I'm in that many people are not even consciously aware of. I think part of it is that there are a lot of stay at home, PTA moms and executive level dads, people like school staff just get conditioned, perhaps not even consciously, to the dads being the dominant parent. At the local schools, many of the women teachers and PTA moms still go by "Mrs." instead of "Ms", so I think there is just something of a more traditional, local mindset with regards to gender.
A dual "response" works fine in print because the separate signature blocks and signature make plain each person really has signed off on the response.
Good point!
Maybe you dont you like to see their style of siging off as you dislike intensely what it implys or stands for.
