每天一篇经济学人 | How to sign off an email 如...

“REGARDS”. “BEST WISHES”. “Warmly”. “Cheers”. “Take care”. The words at the end of a professional email may seem banal. Still, the sign-off matters. Even the ubiquitous “Sent from my iPhone” can act as a justification for brevity and typos or as a virtue-signal that the sender has taken the time to reply although clearly not at their desk. It is therefore worth considering how your missive’s ending will be perceived on the other end, not least because it is likely to be archived away in perpetuity.

【1】missive 信函[官方长信]

【2】archive 存档

“REGARDS”. “BEST WISHES”. “Warmly”. “Cheers”. “Take care”.一封专业邮件的结尾处的文字可能看起来陈词滥调。不过，信的结尾还是很重要的。即使是随处可见的“来自我的iPhone”，也可以作为简洁和错别字的理由，或者作为一个美德的信号，表明发件人已经花时间回复了，尽管很明显不是在他们的办公桌上回复的。因此，值得考虑的是，你的信件的结尾会被另一方如何看待，尤其是因为它很可能会被永久存档。

The appropriate sign-off depends on your position in the corporate pecking order, your relation to the recipient and the nature of exchange. Your columnist, a guest Bartleby, has a few general tips.

【1】pecking order 权势等级

合适的结尾取决于你在公司的地位、你与收件人的关系以及(邮件)交流的本质。您的专栏作家巴托比嘉宾有一些一般性的建议。

First, go easy on informality. Use proper grammar and spelling. It is hard to imagine that you could do a lot with the seconds saved with a “see ya” or “thx” instead of writing the words out in full. Bartleby herself often hides in the intersection of the busyness of life and artificial intelligence. “Got it!” Gmail’s predictive algorithm suggests, and your columnist often clicks on the box. This is maybe lazy but also efficient. It removes the need for a greeting (part of whose job is done instead by the affectionate exclamation mark). Resort to this tactic if truly in a hurry or too melancholic to engage with the world.

【1】affectionate 有爱心的；亲昵的；充满深情的

【2】exclamation mark 感叹号

【3】melancholic 抑郁的

【4】to engage with sth/sb 对付某事/某人；(deal with) 处理‹problem›；应付‹situation, critics›

首先，不要太随意。使用正确的语法和拼写。很难想象，用“see ya”或“thx”而不是使用完整拼写，你可以节省多少秒，且做很多事情。巴托比本人经常躲在忙碌的生活和人工智能的交叉点。“Got it!” Gmail的预测算法给出建议，您的专栏作家也经常点击(这个)框。这可能是懒惰的，但也是有效的。它省去了打招呼的必要(其中一部分工作是用充满深情的感叹号来完成的)。如果真的太匆忙或太忧郁而无法应付世界，就使用这一策略吧。

Spelling things out also helps avoid confusion. A senior editor at The Economist signs as “X”—because his first name starts with that letter, not because he is overly fond of osculation (he uses “XX” for his close friends; his surname does not start with X). Especially when emailing someone for the first time, it is essential not only to include your full name and last name but to avoid folksy terms such as “Ciao” and “Be well”.

【1】osculate 吻；接吻；(使)(两曲线或两面间)互成密切

完整拼写也有助于避免混淆。《经济学人》的一位高级编辑署名为“X”，因为他的名字是以这个字母开头的，而不是因为他过于喜欢亲密接触（他用“XX”来称呼他的密友；他的姓氏不以X开头）。尤其是第一次给别人发邮件的时候，不仅要写上你的全名和姓，而且要避免使用诸如“Ciao”和“Be well”这样的民间用语。

Bartleby’s heart sinks every time she sees a sign-off trying to exude a chilled vibe. They ooze neediness. Affectionate terms such as “toodles” or “lots of love” do not enhance proximity to the recipient unless the closeness is already there. “Smiles” is unspeakable. “High five from down low”, which one publicist used in an email exchange, is worse.

【1】chilled 很轻松的

【2】vibe 氛围；感觉

【3】ooze 散发

【4】unspeakable 可怕的

【5】toodle-oo/toddles  [释义] a way of saying goodbye

每次看到邮件的结尾想要流露出一种很轻松的气氛，巴托比的心都往下沉。他们有需求。像“toodles”或“lots of love”这样充满感情的词汇，除非已经很亲密，否则不会增加与收件人的亲近程度。“Smiles”是可怕的。一位公关人员在邮件交流中使用的“High five from down low”更糟糕。

Avoid being prescriptive. “Have a nice day”, “Happy Monday” or “Take it easy” emphatically do not promote relaxation. “Stay safe”, popular amid lockdowns, evokes sex-education manuals. “Eagerly waiting for a response” will invariably delay the response’s dispatch. “Check out my latest book”, especially with Amazon links, is uncouth. “Follow me on Twitter” lacks graciousness.

【1】prescriptive [释义] saying exactly what must happen, especially by giving an instruction or making a rule

【1】emphatically 毫无疑问地

【2】invariably 一贯地

【3】graciousness 有礼貌

避免“说教”。 “Have a nice day”, “Happy Monday” 或者 “Take it easy” 毫无疑问都不会促进放松。“Stay safe”在封锁期间很流行，这让人想起性教育手册。“Eagerly waiting for a response” 总是会延迟回应的发送。“Check out my latest book”，尤其是有亚马逊链接的时候，是很不雅的。“Follow me on Twitter” 缺乏礼貌。

Next, be consistent. “Yours truly” was a common way to conclude a business letter in the 19th century. But in that era correspondence was layered with nuance. “Yours faithfully” could be preceded only by “Dear Sir” (or, on rare occasions in commerce, “Dear Madam”). If the recipient was named (“Dear Mr So and So”) then the book-end was “Yours sincerely”. Today writers fasten the formal to the informal. If your subject line is “Now in paperback” don’t overcompensate by personalising your sign-off. If you send out a press release on emissions cuts, do not end your note with “Hugs”.

【1】nuance 细微差别

【2】overcompensate 过度补偿；矫枉过正 [释义] to try too hard to correct a problem, therefore creating a new problem

接下来，保持一致。在19世纪，“Yours truly”是一种常见的商业信函结尾方式。但在那个时代，通信是有细微差别的。“Yours faithfully”前面只能是“Dear Sir”(或者，在商业中极少数情况下，偶尔也会加上“Dear Madam”)。如果收信人的名字是(“Dear Mr So and So”) ，那么书尾就是“Yours sincerely”。今天的作家把正式用语和非正式用语联系起来。如果你的主题是“Now in paperback” ，不要过分强调你的结尾。如果你要发布一份关于减排的新闻稿，不要以“Hugs”结尾。

Do not cry out for attention. Latin began to die out in the sixth century and was later abandoned for the vernacular. So resist including dictums in a dead language (“nil posse creari de nilo” as a default salutation is a bit outré). One of Bartleby’s venture-capitalist correspondents signs off with Bertrand Russell’s observation that “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt”—which sounds, well, cocksure.

【1】vernacular 方言

【2】dictum 宣言

【3】Nil posse creari de nilo 无中不可能生有(事出必有因)

【4】outré 非同寻常的；古怪的；（尤指）荒诞出格的

【5】cocksure 自以为是的

不要迫切求得别人的关注。拉丁语在六世纪开始消亡，后来被方言所取代。所以，不要把格言写入一个死气沉沉的语言中(“nil posse creari de nilo”作为默认问候语有点古怪)。巴托比的一位风投记者以罗素的评论作为结尾处:“这个世界的问题在于，愚蠢的人过于自信，而聪明的人充满怀疑”，这听起来，嗯，过于自信。

Lengthy automatic salutations can be tiresome (“I’m using Inbox When Ready to protect my focus” is simply too much information). If you want to cut a thread short, consider “Thank you in advance”. Yes, it may strike some as presumptuous. But it has the virtue of saving you from a follow-up email.

【1】presumptuous 放肆的

【背景】Inbox When Ready

扩展：Protect your focus.Spend less time on your email. This browser extension will help you check your inbox with reasonable frequency, batch process your email on a regular schedule and minimise the total time you spend in your inbox.

冗长的自动问候可能会令人厌烦(“I’m using Inbox When Ready to protect my focus“，这信息太多了)。如果你想减少联络次数，可以考虑“Thank you in advance”。是的，这可能会让一些人觉得有些放肆。但它的优点是让你不用再发后续邮件了。

Some elements of the corporate sign-off are beyond your control. It may include the company’s logo or disclaimers mandated by company policy (“Please consider the environment before printing this email”). But the function of sign-offs is to sign off. Technology may have disrupted the epistolary form, but as with all last words, much still depends on the echo they leave in your mind.

【1】disclaimer 免责声明

公司结束语中的一些元素是你无法控制的。它可能包括公司的logo或公司政策强制的免责声明(“Please consider the environment before printing this email”)。但结尾的作用就是为了“结尾”。科技可能已经打乱了书信的形式，但就像所有的遗言一样，很大程度上仍取决于它们在你脑海中留下的回声。

Thank you for your consideration. Talk soon.

谢谢您的考虑。再联系。

This column may contain confidential material. If you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender and delete all copies. It may also contain personal views which are not the views of The Economist Group.

本专栏可能包含机密材料。如果您不是指定的收件人，请通知发件人并删除所有副本。它也可能包含个人观点，而不是经济学人集团的观点。