It's not just the closing of e-mails that bedevils; it's just as hard to think of a proper way to begin one. "Dear So-and-So" sounds too formal, so Victorian, almost. What about "So-and-So" alone, followed by a dash or comma? I use that, but it does seem a little curt and commanding, like you're saying someone's name and then stamping your feet impatiently. So-and-So! I have tried "Hi So-and-So" and "Hey So-and-So" and find them both peculiar and too flip for addressing anyone other than a buddy, plus I don't understand how to punctuate. Do you follow "Hi So-and-So" with a comma? An exclamation point? Another dash?

Bottom line is that the conventions of letter-writing make an awkward fit with e-mail. There just isn't a good way to begin an e-mail or a good way to end one. And please don't get me started on the dread Subject Line. I don't feel as strongly as the person who posted on Twitter the other day, in all hysterical caps, "I HATE SUBJECT LINES SO MUCH I COULD KILL MYSELF," but I do wish they would just go away. They are either misleading or pointless, and annoying in the instance of those people who actually start their e-mails in the subject line—you know, those e-mails that begin "SUBJECT: I am SO pissed at Mabel that right now I am ready to" and then merrily continue with the rant in the body of the e-mail. But what else are you supposed to do? I can't even count the times I've put "Stuff" in a subject line, just because most of what I'm writing to people about is, in fact, stuff, and I am irritated every time I have to think of a pithy way to sum up what the rest of the e-mail says. If I could, I wouldn't have to write the e-mail, right? I could skywrite it, or text it, or send it by smoke signal—simple, efficient, direct.