Time to Kill Email Signoffs

Matthew JX Malady says they're an annoying holdover from times of old
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 13, 2013 1:47 PM CDT
Time to Kill Email Signoffs
   (Shutterstock)

Got a favorite email signoff? "Best," maybe? Or some version of "Regards"? How about the old standby "XOXO"? Enough already, writes Matthew JX Malady at Slate. It's time to do away with email signoffs entirely. They're a waste of time and space, mere clutter that is a holdover from the days of handwritten letters, he argues. "Henceforth, I do not want—nay, I will not accept—any manner of regards. Nor will I offer any. And I urge you to do the same."

Malady knows the "old guard" will object, and he doesn't care. Nor does he think flexibility is necessary depending on what type of email it is, say a purely professional one. "We need a hard and fast rule here, people," he writes. "We’ve been wishy-washy for far too long, and at a cost of time lost and awkwardness gained." Click to read the full column, in which Malady makes the case that it's also unnecessary for you to put your name at the bottom of an email and the recipient's at the top. "All our lives are about to get simpler." (More emails stories.)

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