Please Find Attached

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, Martha and Grant.

This is Nathan, originally raised in San Diego, but now in Portland going to grad school.

Portland, Oregon?

Portland, Oregon. That’s right.

Hi, Nathan. Welcome to the show.

Thanks. I’m so excited to be on.

A while back, some friends of mine, some classmates and I were having dinner, and we all had our smartphones out, and we all got an email at the same time that led to a discussion about email pet peeves, and I was curious to get your opinion on some of them.

Sure.

So one of the professors at our school had sent out an email, and unknowing to him but pretty obvious to us, he had accidentally sent a reply all to everyone on campus.

And it was a bit of an email gap, not too big of a deal because he didn’t say anything horrible.

But the email that we got while we were sitting there having dinner was an apology from him.

And he sent it again to the whole campus, and he said, Professor so-and-so would like to recall the message, and then he gave the subject line.

And I just thought that was kind of silly.

And it kind of—I’ve seen that a few times here on campus.

I mean, can you take things back on the Internet?

Outlook allows you to unsend a message if it’s attached to an Exchange server.

And you can actually send a message using Outlook, and as long as it’s not read by a client on the other end, you can actually recall it.

And so what it does is it sends a message to the Outlook client that says something about recalling the message and will yank it back if it’s unread.

And you may never even see the original message nor the recall.

However, if you have read the message, you will probably see the recall message.

Okay.

So that might be what he did.

My co-host is not only a lexicographer, he is an IT guy.

Well, I know that.

Literally.

I thought these would be some great things to talk about.

God help me because I’d much rather have other things in my brain than knowing how exchange works.

He has a lot in there.

We are on an exchange, and I’ve seen it so many times that that would make sense.

The other thing that I see a lot is when people attach a file, so they’re sending out an email, and they write almost invariably, please find attached.

And to me, being a digital native, I guess, I find that kind of ridiculous, and for some reason it really grates on me.

Which part of it grates on you?

I think the way they phrase it, please find attach, as if they’re asking you to please look for this attach.

Oh, my God.

Where can it be?

I would say, hey, I’ve attached this.

How old are you, Nathan?

You’re making me feel old.

I totally do that.

I’m in my early 30s.

All right.

I’m in my 40s.

Nathan, if it’s any comfort to you, there have been language mavens who have complained about this enclosed please find business back in the 1920s and 1930s.

And they’re still complaining.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

I’m looking at one that says, when you read a letter that sounds as if it were a compendium of pat expressions from some musty old letter book of the goose quill period, do you feel you’re communing with the writer’s mind?

On the contrary, if you have a discerning mind, you know that you are merely getting a reflex from one who lacks taste and good mental digestion.

That sounds as bad as a thing they’re condemning.

Well, here’s one.

It says, if you use it, you will sound bored or even worse, boring.

And I think that is a damning statement.

So I guess I’ve got to stop using Please Find It Closed.

Oh, no.

Grant, it’s quaint when you say it.

Is it?

Well, I’ve got to say, though, in general, most style guides make it plain that if you were writing a business letter to a stranger, you should adopt the most formality that you’re capable of that doesn’t seem to be over the top.

So it’s kind of expected.

I make it more personal.

I say, I’ve attached the document.

Yeah.

Which sounds…

I love it.

You like that?

You love it?

I do, yeah.

I’m okay with I’ve attached.

I have attached.

Or here is.

Here is.

But I think anything more than that is just fluffy.

Well, Nathan, I know because we are all email users these days, it seems like most jobs amount to 90% email in the modern era.

I know we’ll get a lot of comments about this stuff.

So stay tuned, all right?

Well, thank you so much.

It’s been great talking to you.

All right.

Take care, Nathan.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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