The language of e-mail 99
Although the header is formally distinct from the message area
below, it is not always functionally separate. It is possible to dis-
regard the identity function of the subject line, and use it as an
introductory element in the message itself. An e-mail from my
daughter, enclosing a promised message, consisted of the following
subject:
hereitis...The body of the message then began:
... all in one piece.
Another example had, as subject, ‘friday nights gonna be alright’,
which was followed by the opening sentence, ‘on the 10th that is’.
This dependence of the body copy on the subject line is also some-
times seen in advertising mail, where the subject may be expressed
as a question (‘Do you want to... ?’) to which the opening sentence
of the body gives the answer (‘Yes, you do!’). A further variation
is a message which contains a greeting in the subject line: an ex-
ample was ‘Dear Mr Pinter’, which the body copy then continued
conventionally.
Greetings and farewellsTurning now to the body of the e-mail, this too can be viewed in
terms of obligatory and optional elements. The obligatory item is,
patently, a message of some sort. What is interesting is the extent
towhichitisprecededbyagreeting(orsalutation,opening) and
followed by afarewell(orsignature,closing). Several types of e-mail
have no greeting at all. They include first messages from people
who do not know the recipient, and are therefore typical in the case
of public announcements and junk-mail. Some messages include
an automatically derived ‘Dear X’ or ‘Hi, X’ in their openings,
oftenwithbizarreresults.Automaticjunk-greetingsinmycasehave
included ‘Hi, Professor D’, ‘Hello, Crystal’, and ‘Dear Mr Wales’.
Automatic acknowledgements, indicating that a message has been
received by a system, or that the recipient is away from the office,