
The Linguistics of Writing an Email Like a Boss - hunglee2
http://priceonomics.com/the-linguistics-of-writing-an-email-like-a-boss/
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eegilbert
Hey look, it's my paper. :-)

Dunno why this caught back on now. Paper is from 2012.

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basseq
This is fascinating. Unsurprised by a lot of the findings, as I see them on a
pretty regular basis.

I really interesting technology offering would be an application of this used
to map the "real" power structure vs. the org. chart. Imagine the power of
that as a starting point in an organizational design?

Conversely, I know people who say, "Great thanks!" in threads in which they
otherwise play no part. And I _hate_ those people.

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bobbles
Or gmail could introduce a 'make me feel powerful!' button that adds in more
downward facing terms

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martinflack
> Or gmail could introduce a 'make me feel powerful!' button that adds in more
> downward facing terms

Gmail, if you could introduce a 'make me feel powerful!' button that adds in
more downward facing terms, that would be greeeeeat, mmmmmmmkay?

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cylinder
Google: I'll circle back with you on Wednesday

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dmoy
There is in fact a fairly old (1970s) linguistics theory on this subject. See
e.g. Brown & Levinson on politeness theory.

You can build some fairly easy software that applies this on conversational
data (1:1 emails, chats, phone transcripts, etc), and it works pretty well.

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dandare
This is fascinating but I would be even more interested in actionable advice.
Where is the ballance between being polite and ass kissing? Is the male /
female difference in openness productive or contra? I understand that it
greatly depends on the company culture, but as a non-native speaker and
programmer (geek?) I usually struggle to decide how much information is
appropriate in a sick day request and all my emails (up/dow/sideways) usually
contain multiple "please" and "thanks". Do you know any "communication in
office for geeks 101"?

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tmail21
Makes you wonder about the dynamics of Facebook's upcoming Facebook at Work.
Can imagine the 'interest graph' of a lot of employees will be interest in
pleasing their bosses. Will they spend a lot of time 'liking' their boss's
posts instead of following 'useful' people? Blogged about this recently.
[https://tmail21.com/blog/is-social-the-future-of-
work/](https://tmail21.com/blog/is-social-the-future-of-work/)

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chippy
That was a great read, thanks!

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msellout
Please forward me the same by EOD

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userbinator
#14 of "Phrases in Emails People Send to Their Bosses" is "shit". I'd like to
see some examples of that usage.

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Gupie
Even more puzzling to me is #7 "kitchen".

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Terr_
Maybe it's from infrequent food-related announcements for events, sent by
office-assistant types and received by many people?

"Project Iota launched! Pizza in kitchen"

