“All the best”
“All the best” is a polite and convenient written sign-off that many of us employ without even thinking. I learned to use it when I was an intern at a literary agency; it usually indicated the presence of an enclosed unsigned contract, and it sounded just fine. That is all it is ever meant to do: sound just fine.
I was walking along Henry Street on Monday morning when I heard a bored-looking father bid his neighbor farewell. “All the best!” he mustered with a kid-friendly enthusiasm reserved for awkward situations in which children are present.
Remember those days when everyone you knew was beginning to seek continuity between their online and offline lives, and somebody would say “lol!” instead of laughing? It was a common, tragic little slip; one would feel almost embarrassed for the speaker. But that dad on Henry that day, with his forced smile and his “all the best”, is not all that different; he just writes corporate e-mails instead of frenetic, gay I.M’s.
