Oh man, English is not my mother tongue, I had no idea somebody may dislike phrases like âI hope youâre doing well...â. I genuinely used it to be friendly.
I guess it makes sense if I think of something similar in Russian though! Thanks for bringing this up!)
@igorlanko that's not so bad. We used that long before the pandemic. To me, it just feels like a pretty American thing to say, like, "Hi, how are you?" where we care but don't actually want or expect a truthful response. đ
These difficult/unusual/crazy times feels like it's the new way of asking "how's the weather". Where there's real concern, it's more likely posed as a question.
As for the rest, they're weird lol especially ping me. It feels 10 years old, when Blackberries were popular.
They're all cliche, which I dislike, but can survive. Life is full of cliches. What I hate, hate, hate about "these difficult times" is the saccharine melodrama of it all.
I hate them all. But get the ball rolling is BY far the most annoying, I don't know what about that phrase annoys me but it just makes me instantly want to delete the email.
The first one I believe is a nice way to be considerate since it IS a difficult time. Even if it may not be you or but it could be for them.
By the way, I hope you are doing well in this difficult time as well as everyone else in this discussion.
"Ping me?" Who says that?
"Get the ball rolling." I googled this and the origin story is pretty cool: "The first origin story states that get the ball rolling is a sports term, taken from the game of croquet. Croquet came into existence in Britain in the mid-1850s, though a similar game named pall-mall had existed in France since the mid-1600s."
@jessehojjensen I agree, the intention is good. I like to start emails with something similar i.e. "I hope you're having a great day", "Hopefully, everything's great in your world", et cetera.
And thanks for the information about the origin of the "Get the ball rolling." Jesse.