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[buravirgil]

http://priceonomics.com/the-linguistics-of-writing-an-email-like-a-boss/

There's a lot here, but this is particularly interesting to me:

Researchers went through the Enron data set and looked at overt display of power use by hierarchy, and by gender. Unsurprisingly, emails from superiors to people beneath them in the hierarchy had more overt displays of power than the emails people sent to their superiors.

But, when the emails were separated by the gender of the sender, they found that this trend only held for male superiors. The difference between female subordinates and female superiors’ use of overt displays of power was not statistically significant.

[johnslat]

Dear buravirgil,

My response?

Oh, dear me.

oh dear
used when you are upset, disappointed, annoyed, worried, or surprised about something bad that has happened or something wrong that you have done

Oh dear, I’m afraid I’ve spilled your coffee.
Synonyms and related words
Ways of emphasizing how bad something is:utterly, sadly, hopelessly...
Explore Thesaurus

This is the American English definition of dear. View British English definition of dear.

Change your default dictionary to British English.

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/dear_3

Regards,
John

[buravirgil]

John,

Did you mean to post what you have to this thread? Not another about "Oh, dear"?

[johnslat]

Dear buravirgil,

I was indulging in a little "cross-threading."

It does, after all, seem a reasonable response to this:

"But, when the emails were separated by the gender of the sender, they found that this trend only held for male superiors. The difference between female subordinates and female superiors’ use of overt displays of power was not statistically significant."

Especially as I am a male (superior).

Regards,
John

[Xie Lin]

But of course you are a superior male, John.

.

[grahamb]