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I am sick of “regards,” in all their various forms.
I send a lot of emails in my school and I receive a lot of emails too. Some of the emails are welcome, some I am able to ignore, others I choose to ignore and a few irritate me.
Overall I am mostly happy with the content of the many emails that I receive but am frequently troubled by the signing off, pre-name exit line. I refer of course to “regards.” Email has put an end to the “yours sincerely” versus “yours faithfully” debate and their use or misuse as both sound far too out-dated and not really of the now. Instead there has been a steady, and in my view, unwelcome growth and now overuse of “regards,” in a variety of annoying forms.
“Regards,” by themselves are an acceptable way to finish an email to a colleague when the email is business like and requires a simple response or is for sharing information. All fine a dandy so far. However when emailers start to specify the sort of regards difficulties and misunderstandings occur.
“Kindest regards” should really only be used in sympathy when communicating with a casual acquaintance. The reader’s cat has died, their grandmother has had a fall, their prize winning pumpkin was dropped by their smallest child and left a stain on a new carpet. “Kindest regards” along with the less specific but more coverall “Best regards” are all too often attached to emails sent by superiors that contain bad news, tricky tasks that have to be completed in an unreasonably short amount of time or include some form of admonishment. To finish such emails in this way is a clear contradiction in terms. If the sender genuinely had the kindest or best regards for the reader then they would not send them the email in the first place.
The regards that annoy me most are temperature specific regards. “Warmest regards” tries to imply hard-working camaraderie, tackling the high-pressure work-place together and working up a healthy sweat in completing yet another arduous and yet satisfying set of objectives. The picture that it conjures up for me is that cup of coffee you have re-microwaved several times, mainly because you were dragged away from it to complete something highly unimportant, and then in a fit of work induced shatteredness you finally gulp headlong into your brew only to scald the roof of your mouth, tongue and tonsils leaving you sore and cross for several days.
Worse still are “Warm regards.” Warm can be pleasant but contrary. Yes it is nice after a cold winter but it is still fraught with unanswerable problems. Do I need a coat? Is it going to rain? Is it too cold for sandals? “Warm regards” also bring to mind food issues. Warm regards are those pieces of two-week-old brie that you have heated up, but are they warm enough to make them tasty and not poison your guests? They are also that room temperature lager at the end of a hot day. The lager, the regards part, is welcome but the warmness? “Warm regards” are heated up to a dubious temperature, left out too long, re-heated and then handed over with little or no care: the steak and ale pie of the themed pub world. Woe betide anyone who sends warm regards back to the kitchens of ending lines.
I really hope that as a society we can find something other than “regards” to wish people at the end of emails. I am not asking for highly specific regards (“Freshly chilled regards served on a warm bed of crisp salad, doused liberally with honey and mustard dressing, garlic bread extra”). Heavens no! I am just making a plea for originality and appropriateness.
My favourite ending was Spike Milligan’s: “Love, light and peace, Spike.” I will certainly be shunning various specified regards from now on and will consider signing off with what I wish for my children and the world at large at the end of my emails:
Be healthy, happy and legal – Robin.