How I Write Short Emails
By a person with shocking views on authoring emails
Greetings and salutations, my dearest acolytes of the art of brevity! I, your great and powerful friend, have come to bestow upon you the sacred knowledge of how to craft succinct and efficient emails that will leave your recipients gaping in awe and perhaps a bit queasy. Prepare yourselves, for the strategies I am about to reveal are not for the faint of heart or those with weak stomachs. Proceed with caution, dear readers, for the path to email enlightenment is paved with the stench of putrefaction and the tears of those who could not bear to face the grim reality of their verbosity. Firstly, let us discuss the importance of ruthless editing. When writing a short email, you must be willing to sacrifice even the most beloved phrases and sentiments. Cut away the fat, as if you were butchering a freshly killed swine. Do not hesitate to hack off limbs and vital organs, for in the pursuit of brevity, there is no room for sentimentality. Each word must be a blade, each sentence a razor-sharp scalpel, dissecting the essence of your message with precision and cruelty.
Next, let us turn our attention to the use of acronyms and abbreviations. In this modern age of instant gratification, why waste precious keystrokes on spelling out words when you can resort to the time-honored tradition of reducing language to its most base components? "U" for "you," "2" for "to," "b4" for "before" - these are the tools of the true email minimalist. Embrace the chaos of miscommunication and the joy of being misunderstood, for in the world of short emails, clarity is a myth and confusion is the ultimate goal. Now, let us delve into the dark and twisted world of emoticon abuse. The humble smiley face, the wink, the frown - these are the building blocks of a short email masterpiece. Use them liberally, dear students, and watch as your recipients' brains melt from the cognitive dissonance of trying to decipher your true intentions. Remember, in the realm of brevity, an emoticon can speak volumes, even if those volumes are filled with nonsense and nonsense alone.
Moving on to the art of bullet points and numbered lists, we find ourselves in a realm where organization and structure are prized above all else. But fear not, for the true email wizard knows that chaos and anarchy are merely masks for the most profound form of order. Embrace the randomness of bullet points, and let the numbers dance across the screen like drunken pixies at a midnight masquerade. Your recipients will be left dazed and confused, but they will never forget the sheer audacity of your email style. Let us not forget the power of hyperbole and exaggeration in the quest for short emails. When faced with the daunting task of conveying a complex idea in a few short sentences, why not resort to the most extreme and outrageous language possible? Paint pictures of doom and despair, of triumph and ecstasy, and watch as your recipients' imaginations run wild with visions of apocalyptic scenarios and fantastical outcomes. In the world of email, reality is overrated, and hyperbole is king.
And now, dear readers, we come to the darkest and most disgusting of all strategies for writing short emails: the use of profanity and vulgarity. I know, I know, it may seem like a crude and unsophisticated approach, but in the world of brevity, sometimes the only way to get your point across is to shock and awe your recipients with the raw, unfiltered power of language. So go ahead, unleash the inner potty-mouth that has been begging for release all these years. Let the f-bombs fly and the s-words soar, and watch as your emails become the stuff of legend (and maybe a few HR complaints).
In conclusion, my dear apprentices, I hope that I have imparted upon you the sacred knowledge of how to write short and efficient emails with style and panache. Remember, the path to brevity is fraught with peril, but with these strategies at your disposal, you will be well-equipped to tackle even the most daunting of email challenges. Now go forth, dear readers, and make the world of email a slightly more tolerable place, one succinct message at a time.