Let’s face it, some colleagues will make us angry from time to time. Brightly coloured text in Comic Sans MSīusiness emails should be easy to read, so resist the temptation to use odd typefaces or different colours.
Black text in a professional-looking font like Arial. Ideally stick to a sans-serif font like Arial, Helvetica or Calibri and use black text. Never use unusual fonts or text colours in a business email. Using slang or informal acronyms (such as words like ‘laters’ for ‘goodbye’ or vulgar acronyms like WTF). Using kisses (you don’t really want to be sending lots of xxxxxxxx to your boss!). OVERUSING CAPITAL LETTERS TO MAKE A POINT (people will think you’re shouting). Lots of exclamation marks or question marks (?!!!!!!). Emoticons (save these for your friends 😉). For this reason, always avoid the following faux pas. While you don’t usually need to be ultra-formal, you don’t want your emails to be too familiar or informal. In business emails, you need to write as simply and clearly as possible. A blank email with a subject line like ‘Call me’ or ‘Send me your report by 5pm’ would be considered rude and aggressive. Never use the subject line to convey your message instead of the email itself. Instead, try and be specific so the reader knows what the message is about and can easily find your email again. One thing that really irritates recipients of business emails is a vague subject line or – worse – no subject line at all.Īvoid giving emails subject lines such as ‘Hello’, ‘URGENT’, ‘?’ or ‘Quick question’. So make sure you’ve got it right and that your autocorrect hasn’t changed it to something different! 3. Not much annoys people more than someone spelling their name wrong. Some common names with different spellings include: Lots of English names can be spelled in different ways, so always check you’ve got it right. Getting the recipient’s name wrongĬheck and double check you’ve addressed your email to the right person and that you’ve spelled their name correctly. For the same reason, never start an email without a greeting. One faux pas you absolutely must avoid is beginning an email with just the recipient’s name. It’s best to only ever use this if someone has already sent you an email using ‘hey’. These days, particularly in creative industries, some people will use ‘hey’ instead of ‘hi’. The most formal opening uses ‘dear’ with a person’s title and surname, but if you want to be slightly informal and respectful at the same time, you can use ‘dear’ with a person’s first name. This might be more appropriate if you are writing to a potential customer, or someone you don’t know very well. However, you only ever use ‘hi’ with someone’s first name, never with their title and surname.įor more formal emails, you’ll use ‘dear’ rather than ‘hi’. This is standard usage if you’re emailing colleagues or people you know reasonably well, such as a client you’re in regular contact with. In most cases, you’ll use the greeting ‘hi’. #Meaning of faux pas in french how to
When you start your email, you’ve got two main choices about how to address the person you’re writing to.
So, if you want to write business emails and avoid making embarrassing mistakes, read on! This mini guide will help you avoid 8 of the most common faux pas made by native and non-native English speakers alike. Luckily, most of these rules are easy to learn and apply. Why? It’s largely because, when you write an English business email, you need to stick to lots of unspoken rules about language, tone of voice, punctuation and more. However, if English isn’t your first language, it’s all too easy to accidentally make faux pas when writing business emails. It’s a French phrase used in English to refer to words or behaviour that cause offense or embarrassment.
0 kommentar(er)
