Diss Regards

The other day I received an email from a person who had signed off with ‘Cheers!!’ Now, I’ve seen enough people sign off with ‘Cheers’ – but without the two exclamation marks. While nowhere near as common as ‘Regards’, it’s the informal, buddy way of signing off for people who don’t want to come across as being too stiff. It’s a bit like saying “Hey, just because I’m sending you an official email with words like ‘peruse’ and ‘do the needful’ doesn’t mean that I’m some boring corporate chap who’s sold his soul for a lifetime of great riches and eternal boredom. There’s a fun side to me – I sign off with Cheers, as if we’re in a bar enjoying a drink together.”

In the case of this Cheers, though, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I suppose it was the exclamation marks that threw me off. I grew up in simpler times - before the onset of text messages that ushered in an era of rampant abbreviations. Spare the rod and spoil the child was not just a literary expression but a guiding principle for most teachers, who ensured that not just the rod but also the cane, the duster and the knuckles were never spared in a suspiciously eager attempt to prevent said child from spoiling. An exclamation mark, then, could not be tossed about casually or sprinkled liberally without a care in the world. Like a good wine, it had to be rolled around, savoured gradually, lingered over and finally used very judiciously and with utmost discretion, only if a sentence contained something truly worthy of emphasis.

This isn’t how it is now – every second sentence on social media ends with something like this - !!!$$@!!!. While I'm no grammar nazi, a lifetime of conditioning has meant that I could never bring myself to it. My mind would grapple with technicalities like “Do I really need two dollar signs when one may convey the message just as effectively?” or with larger, more philosophical questions like “Would the person who reads this think that I’m a hysterical teenager?” Even a single exclamation mark would leave me agonizing over whether it actually needed to be there at all. “Does it emphasize the point too strongly? Is it making the sentence come off as too aggressive or desperate? Would a full stop be a more subtle way of conveying the point? Should I save it for a more critical or dramatic sentence that is more deserving of an exclamation mark?”

But coming back to the email signature, I’ve also seen many people use ‘Cheers!’ – but with one exclamation mark. At that level, it still feels like something that I can deal with. The feeling is approximately the same as ‘Cheers’, except that the person is trying to emphasize the Cheers in a more earnest way, like he truly means it. As if he’s announcing to the world “No, don’t mistake me for the guy who uses ‘Cheers’ just to convince everyone that he isn’t a boring corporate guy. I’m actually a very fun guy and just to emphasize that point, here’s an exclamation mark”.

However, two exclamation marks? It just seems excessively happy. Or jumpy. Or hysterical. Like the person has just won the lottery and is sending out the email. Or he’s just met his childhood idol and is sending out the email. It’s the sort of signature that makes you forget that the rest of the mail is a stinker and instead creates a picture of the guy being extremely thrilled each time he sends an email, jumping up and down all over the office, delirious with joy and frothing over in a frisson of excitement. At the very least, such a person would have to change his signature to ‘Gloom!!’ to be taken seriously if he wanted to convey genuine anger or disappointment.

All this got me thinking about official email signatures, and the one I use. 

Regards. 

That is without a shred of doubt the most boring, ineffectual way to sign off on an email. It says absolutely nothing at all. It’s a blank wall, a poker face. Whether it’s there or not makes absolutely no difference to the recipient of the email. I’m sure it didn’t start out that way. The person who first used ‘Regards’ in an email probably had noble enough intentions “Hey, I can’t just sign off with my name, that would look too curt. I must convey some sense of warmth/sincerity/respect without looking too friendly or casual.” Now, though, it’s absolutely generic – perhaps that’s the reason I end up using it. It gives nothing away.

The problem is every other variation on Regards tends to convey something more, and you may not always want to do that. There’s Warm Regards/Best Regards/Kind Regards/Thanks & Regards, which make you sound like a friendlier version of the person who simply says Regards. There’s ‘rgds’, which makes you sound like a busier version of the person who says Regards and therefore has no time for punctuation or typing the word out fully. Then there’s ‘BR’, which makes you sound like a cooler, more ‘with-it’ version of the busier person who has no time to type out Regards. The sort who would wish someone ‘HBD’ on his or her birthday and not think twice about it.

Oh, and finally there’s ‘br’, which makes you sound like the busier version of the already busy person who uses ‘BR’, someone so busy that there isn’t even the time to bother with punctuation while typing ‘BR’. Beyond that point, you’ve just attained a sort of email signature nirvana – you’ve risen above all these petty considerations and simply sign off with your name. Or better still, just your initial.

A.