Miss Manners: People don't say "Good Morning" when texting

[cereta]

Dear Miss Manners: When texting or emailing friends or clients, I often start off with “Good morning” or “How are you?” and end with “Have a great day.”

I always get short, right-to-the-point answers back, like “Okay,” and they don’t usually start with “Good morning” or end with “Have a good day.” So sometimes, I sarcastically reply “Good morning to me, too,” which I know people don’t like.

Am I too sensitive? I am old school and I just think people are being rude. They can say a little more than “Be there” or something like that. Maybe my expectations are too high and I won’t expect as much anymore.

Miss Manners: An excess of sensitivity would not be the diagnosis from Miss Manners after you admitted to the sarcastic barb. In the hope of preventing the next one, let her point out that different methods of communication carry with them different expectations about brevity.

While she agrees it would be unmannerly not to say hello to someone to whom you have just been introduced in a social setting, she would prefer to dispense with the prelude when warning someone about a fast-approaching car. Texts fall somewhere in between.

Comments

[cereta]

Here's the thing: I hate texting. Haaaaaate it. I hate typing with my thumbs, I hate having to switch between keyboards to use proper punctuation (and it hurts my English teacher SOUL not to), hate it. So I usually keep my texts as brief as possible. I'm not curt, but I don't usually include salutations. It's not about manners; it's about brevity.

[julian]

+1

[julian]

Like, I am perfectly happy, when I *can* type, to type out more elaborate greetings. But I can't type on a freakin' phone. And even autocorrect is clunky. So like, it's a *different style of communication*, LW. Cope.

Or, yes, Miss Manners, good answer.

[ashbet]

+10 to Miss Manners for calling that out!

I also can’t bring myself to use text-speak or omit punctuation/capitalization, but my texts are much, much briefer than my communications from a real keyboard, for the same reason.

[dissectionist]

I’m fine with typing on a phone but I generally don’t use small-talk niceties because I find them inefficient. When someone is opening a conversation about something else with “how are you?” they aren’t actually asking how I am; they’re initiating a canned call-and-answer where I’m expected to give a meaningless affirmative regardless of how I actually feel. It’s simply a waste of time to me. Get right to the point of what you want to ask or tell me, I’ll get right to the point of what I need to give you in response, and we can both move on with our days.

[melannen]

When I was a preteen I found a very silly book that among other things stated that "Haya", "Doon", "Awrye" and "Anyu" were names of ancient Lemurian goddesses preserved linguistically in now-meaningless ritual greetings. It really helps me get through small talk!

[dissectionist]

That’s actually pretty cute!

[green_grrl]

I don’t like this phrase in general, but she is absolutely the person for whom, “OK, Boomer,” was coined.

[oursin]

I bet this person is younger than me and I think she's an anachronistic prune. Does she sign off, 'Believe me, esteemed sir/madame, your humble servant'? people don't even do that in dead-tree formal letters these days.

[conuly]

My dearest oursin, I hope this comment finds you well....

[oursin]

Accept, dearest conuly, this heartiest expression of appreciation....

[ethelmay]

I actually do use a variant of that phrase when I'm approaching people on, say, 23andme, because I know it is weird to be bugged by complete strangers about family details, and a friendly lead-in seems appropriate. But genealogy questions always do sound as if one were Miss Climpson or someone anyway.

[conuly]

I have never been so aggrieved as the time I got an advertisement in the mail, in an envelope, which began with "I hope this letter finds you well".

The one time I ever get a letter that starts that way, and it's not from a person? So annoying.

[ethelmay]

I honestly hadn't even thought of the expression as old-fashioned, but I looked on Google Books and was reminded of "I hope this finds you well as it leaves me," which latter phrase is definitely Victorian-sounding.

[conuly]

You see? Very old-fashioned!

I feel I should offer a correction to my previous comment, btw. Now that I think back, I may have been less aggrieved and more amused. I don't really know anymore.

[azurelunatic]

I have been known to sign work emails "With utmost sincerity" but those are outliers and also items for my Gallery of Hostile Signatures

[conuly]

An excess of sensitivity would not be the diagnosis from Miss Manners after you admitted to the sarcastic barb.

Thank you, that's exactly the commentary this LW needs to hear. Unfortunately, they're not likely to understand it.

[oursin]

Texts are not the place for excessive redundant verbiage, I mutter, banging my cane and twitching my antimaccassar.

With emails, I find a chain of communication tends to segue from initial approach may include a certain formality to one/two word responses and this is the nature of the form.

[feast_of_regrets]

Miss Manners knocked this out of the park. An absolute delight of an answer.

[cora]

I used to love texting (I have since switched back to instant messenger as that's where a lot of my friends prefer to talk).

That being said: Texting is an asynchronous communication style. As such, it does not require openings ("Hello & good morning!") or closings ("Have a great day!"/"Bye!"/"Catch You Later!"). Nor does it require you to disclose "Have to go to work, I won't be able to respond for a while." If someone is expecting a real time response, that conversation should be a phone call. All other communication, it's assumed the other person may not respond back for a while due to prior engagements.

[jamoche]

I worked at a software company in California with a QA team in China that did not get the idea of text messages being async. This is how a conversation would go:

Them, Monday 7PM my time: Hello
Me, Tuesday 9AM: Hello, did you have a question?
Them, Tuesday 7PM: Yes, it is ___
Me, Weds 9AM: The answer is ___

So they get the answer Weds evening my time, wasting a day by not just asking the question in the first text. Yes, we did tell them. No, it didn't take.

[pauraque]

I can't imagine why people would want to make their interactions with this person as brief as possible.

[sporky_rat]

If I'm texting someone I've never texted before, it'll run something like, 'Hi, this is Sporky, [rest of message]' but that's the only time I can think of using salutations in text.