On E-mail
I am reading a book right now called Send by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. It’s a book about e-mail. I know, not everyone’s cup of tea.
But they share some lists I thought were significant enough to share.
Seven Reasons to Love E-mail
- Best medium for sharing essential information
- You can reach about anyone.
- It knows no time-zones.
- It provides a searchable record.
- You can craft your message on your own time and own timetable.
- You can preserve pieces/parts of previously sent messages in your new message.
- You can include other information, i.e., attachments.
Eight Deadly Sins of E-mail
- Vague
- Insulting
- Puts you in jail.
- Cowardly.
- The one that won’t go away (lots of replies).
- Too sarcastic.
- Too casual.
- Too inappropriate.
One issue I have thus far with the book: they write e-mail as email. I got into the habit about 2 years ago of writing e-mail with the hyphen. I prefer it, and somehow, it feels right.
The book is an interesting read for anyone who might live or die by e-mail. They’ve got good tips for when e-mail isn’t such a good idea, and lots of humorous examples.
July 29th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Thanks for the post!
It’s funny about email vs e-mail. When we started writing the book, we used e-mail which is New York Times style. But we showed an early draft to Naomi Baron, a linguistics professor who has written some great stuff on electronic communication, and she told us that younger people almost never use the hyphenated form and that it was really a relic of the early days. I’ve had a “Google alert” on for both forms, and I must say that I am finding the unhyphenated much more common. So I think I’m glad we chose it. But the NYT still goes for the hyphen as do a lot of other folk. I can easily see it argued either way.
Best,
Will Schwalbe, co-auhtor of SEND