Think twice Send once...

From the Jack's Winning Words Blog comes this little gem - “If thou thinkest twice before thou speakest once, thou wilt speakest twice the better for it.” (William Penn). If Penn were around today he might instead say - "If you think twice before you hit Send in your email, you might be the better for it." How many times have you regretted something that you sent out in your email that you should have thought more about? I know I have many times regretted hitting the Send button.

Email is a communications method that almost encourages bad behavior, since it affords a slight degree of anonymity for users. Sure the receiver of your email can see your email address and send something back or track you down, if they really want to, but you're not standing there in front of them when you write your missive and so they can't see you then or reach out and touch (slap) you for having said what you just wrote.

Email is also dangerous because the reader of the email has the opportunity (maybe even the obligation) to interpret what it is you're trying to say. They put the emphasis on the words as they see them and that can change the intended meaning, making a mild rebuke sound like a flaming rant or even turning what was meant to be a compliment into an insult. Most of us don't spend much time carefully choosing our words for emails, especially those that are meant as mild rebukes or expressions of disapproval. So your message, telling a friend that you think they should reconsider an action or decision, becomes a flaming arrow that burns a bridge or at least inflames an already touchy subject.

The other email faux pas that can quickly be regretted is the tendency to hit "Reply to All" when one has received an email that begs (or provokes) an answer. That just compounds the error and let's everyone on the original mailing list see what a doofus you are. That's especially true if you share some piece of information that you intended to be shared only with the original sender, such as informing someone who invited you to a party that you're sorry that you can't attend because you have a colonoscopy scheduled for that day. Oops! Of course, some emailers want the world to know what their thoughts are about the original message, i.e. "You're an idiot for saying what you did in your email." Again, think before hitting the Send button.

The last email no-no that I'll discuss here is THE PEOPLE WHO APPARENTLY HAVEN'T DISCOVERED THAT THEIR COMPUTERS WILL TYPE IN LOWER CASE LETTERS, TOO. In polite terms this is called shouting. Maybe they meant to shout; or, perhaps these people have such bad eyesight that they can't see anything but capital letters; however, it is annoying to almost everyone who receives such messages (except of course those readers who also have bad eyesight).

My most consistent mistake with email (other than hitting the Send button to quickly on occasion) is not taking the time to spell check what I've typed. I'm not a good typist and often I'm dyslexic on short words like "me" and "the". In one email that I sent out to a client I was trying to tell her to "let me know" if she want to see some houses; it came out "let em know" and she emailed me back asking how she was to let them know. So, now I try to pause and go back over what I've typed to check for obvious transposition errors. If you have examples of bad email habits let em know. Now, should I hit the Publish Post button on this?