#oneaday Day 174: How Not to Sound Like a Business-Speaking Twat

Further to the previous post, I thought I'd share a handy (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) guide to some common substitutions you can make in order to make your business emails sound like they are written by a human being rather than an algorithm. These are all based on personal experience.

In no particular order…

• I refer to… -> Remember when…

• I shall -> I'll

• myself -> me, I (depending on context)

• yourself -> you

• revert to -> get back to, reply to, undo

• loop in -> include, forward to

• email chain -> thread

• please do not hesitate to -> feel free to

• at the earliest opportunity -> soon

• gentle reminder -> reminder

• Kind regards -> thanks, cheers

• Good morning -> Hi, hello

• annual leave -> holiday, vacation, away

• communication, correspondence -> email

• feedback -> thoughts, feelings, opinions, ideas

• many thanks -> thanks, cheers

• enquiries, queries -> questions

• procure, purchase -> buy

• breakdown in communication -> (s)he didn't tell you/no-one told me

• somewhat surprised -> what the fuck are you doing

• a little concerned -> no, seriously, what the actual fuck

• meeting -> waste of everyone's time, possibility of food

• conference call -> waste of everyone's time over larger geographical area, BYO food

• colleague -> that person from Accounts I can't remember the name of

• resource -> person, people

• apologies -> sorry

• action -> do

• there has been an error -> I made a mistake

• there has been a small error -> I made a big mistake

• challenging -> awful, bad, crap, horrible

• (any acronym) -> just write the full thing out you lazy bastard

I'm sure there are plenty more I haven't thought of! What are some of your least favourites?