Organisation Hierarchy

Email Terms You Are Misusing written by Farhan Shah

On average, 294 billion emails are sent every day. That’s 2.8 million emails whizzing electronically around the Earth every second. Discounting mysterious correspondences from rich and shady Nigerian financial advisers and electronic pharmacists touting magic pills, quite a large number of work-related emails are opened up, read and replied to. Indeed, most office inhabitants in Singapore are familiar with Outlook and all its other variants, and will tend to be very cautious when wording their emails, simply because emails usually mean there is an electronic trail. Consequently, email users will have the habit of adopting the language that their colleagues and contacts use, which might sometimes actually be plain wrong. Here are 5 email terms that you are probably misusing blithely: 1. As attached Whenever there is an attachment, a healthy practice that most people adopt is to point out the existence of the attachment in the text of the email. This is great; unfortunately, many email senders fall prey to a very common grammar mistake. The most prevalent example is “Please find the documents as attached”. Unless these documents have been wedded in the eyes of the law, this sentence is grammatically wrong. A better and more modern phrase to use would be: “I have attached the documents in this email.” 2. With regards to… At some point or other when you were crafting your email, you might have used the phrase “With regards to” when you’re bringing up a point or changing the focus of the email. Some common examples are: • With regards to your proposal… • With regards to your request… “With regards to” is grammatically wrong. The correct term is “With regard to” although there are far simpler terms that you can use, such as “Concerning”, “About” or even “Regarding”. 3. Please advice Normally included at the end of emails as a call to action, “please advice” is an oft-used phrase when the email sender is asking for approval or input from the recipient. However, “please advice” will have your English teacher spitting out his or her morning coffee as well as a round of after-school lessons on the difference between verbs and nouns. The word you’re looking for is “advise”, which is a verb whereas “advice” is a noun. So, the correct phrase or sentence is “Please advise.” 4. Dateline Unless you’re referring to the meridian running across the town of Greenwich marking Greenwich Mean Time or the number to a chat-line, “dateline” does not actually make any sense. What most people mean when they use the word “dateline” is actually “deadline”. Common wrong examples include: • Please advice (!) on the dateline of this proposal. • The dateline for this project is 30 February 2013. The next time you want to inform the stakeholders in your project of when it needs to be completed, remember it is “deadline” and not the number to a shady call centre. 5. Revert Quite possibly the most abused word in the electronic mail landscape, “revert” can usually be found at least once in your emails for the day. If you have gotten an email with this phrase “Please revert as soon as possible”, feel free to charge the sender with culpable homicide not amounting to murder of the English language. Revert does not mean “reply”; it actually means “to return to a previous state”. Wrong usage: Please revert with the details. Correct usage: She reverted to her evil ways. A correct and friendlier sentence that you can use to replace “Please revert as soon as possible” is “I look forward to hearing from you soon.”

Italian Confession

An elderly Italian man who lived on the outskirts of Rimini , Italy ,
went to the local church for confession.
When the priest slid open the panel in the confessional, the man said:

"Father.. During World War II, a beautiful Jewish woman from our
neighborhood knocked urgently on my door and asked me to hide her from
the Nazis. So I hid her in my attic."

The priest replied: "That was a wonderful thing you did, and you have
no need to confess that."

"There is more to tell, Father.. She started to repay me with sexual
favors. This happened several times a week, and sometimes twice on Sundays."

The priest said, "That was a long time ago and by doing what you did,
you placed the two of you in great danger, but two people under those
circumstances can easily succumb to the weakness of the flesh.
However, if you are truly sorry for your actions, you are indeed forgiven."

"Thank you, Father. That's a great load off my mind. I do have one
more question."

"And what is that?" asked the priest.

"Should I tell her the war is over?''

The moral of the story

This is a story about
A Fly, a Fish, a Bear
A Hunter, a Mouse and a Cat.


There is a moral to this story.....

In the dead of summer a fly was resting among leaves beside a stream.

The hot, dry fly said to no one in particular,


'Gosh...if I go down three inches
I will feel the mist
From the water and I will be refreshed.'

There was a fish in the water thinking,


'Gosh...if that fly goes down three inches, I can eat him.'


There was a bear on the shore thinking,


'Gosh...if that fly goes down three inches
That fish will jump for the fly...
And I will grab the fish!!'
It also happened that a hunter was farther up the bank
Of the lake preparing to eat a cheese sandwich.....

'Gosh,' he thought, 'if that fly goes down three inches...
And that fish leaps for it...
That bear will expose himself and grab for the fish.
I'll shoot the bear and have a proper lunch.'
Now, you probably think this is
Enough activity on one river bank,

But I can tell you there's more....


A wee mouse by the hunter's foot was thinking,

'Gosh, if that fly goes down three inches...
And that fish jumps for that fly..
And that bear grabs for that fish...
The dumb hunter will shoot the bear
And drop his cheese sandwich.'
A cat lurking in the bushes took in this scene and thought,
(as was fashionable to do on the banks of
This particular river around lunch time)

'Gosh...if that fly goes down three inches..
And that fish jumps for that fly
And that bear grabs for that fish
And that hunter shoots that bear..
And that mouse makes off with the cheese sandwich .
Then I can have mouse for lunch.'
The poor fly is finally so hot and so dry that he
Heads down for the cooling mist of the water.

The fish swallows the fly...

The bear grabs the fish..

The hunter shoots the bear..

The mouse grabs the cheese sandwich...

The cat jumps for the mouse..
The mouse ducks...

The cat falls into the water and drowns.

NOW, The Moral Of The Story...
Whenever a fly goes down three inches,

Some pussy's gonna be in serious danger.

Head of the household

When everyone on earth was dead and waiting to enter Paradise, God appeared and said, 'I want the men to make two lines. One line for the men who were true heads of their household, and the other line for the men who were dominated by their women. I want all the women to report to St. Peter.'

Soon, the women were gone and there were two lines of men.

The line of the men who were dominated by their wives was100 miles long and in the line of men who truly were heads of their household, there was only one man.
God said, 'You men should be ashamed of yourselves, I created you to be the head of your household! 'You have been disobedient and have not fulfilled your purpose! 'Of all of you, only one obeyed. Learn from him.' God turned to the one man, 'How did you manage to be the only one in this line?'

The man replied, 'My wife told me to stand here.'

New words

The Washington Post's Mensa Invitational once again invited readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido : All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

And the winners are:

1. Coffee, n.. The person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.

6. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. Lymph, v.. To walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. Flatulence, n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there. (actally this has been credited to George Carlin, described as a staunch atheist.)

16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

An interesting paradox

In a small town, a person decided to open up a brothel, which was right opposite to a church. The church & its congregation started a campaign to block the brothel from opening with petitions and prayed daily against his business.

Work progressed. However, when it was almost complete and was about to open a few days later, a strong lightning struck the brothel and it was burnt to the ground.

The church folks were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the brothel owner sued the church authorities on the grounds that the church through its congregation & prayers was ultimately responsible for the destruction of his brothel, either through direct or indirect actions or means.

In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons for the act of God. As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented:

'I don't know how I'm going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork, we have a brothel owner who firmly believes in the power of prayer and an entire church that doesn't.'