I love this. I love how your signature has freed you of your own self imposed expectations but also helps to set new norms. I never thought of grammar as being a gatekeeper but as I reflect I know I have definitely fallen into an unconscious bias when reading a poorly written email or even a mixup of your and your. We don’t know what everyone’s circumstances are and should not judge so quickly.
Erin, this is such an interesting and helpful post. I appreciate how you explain the various levels of disclosure and what you decided on, how it works well. I love how others could take inspiration from it and adapt something similar. Thank you!
“The funny part is, the longer I taught high school English, the more convinced I became that grammar is a form of gatekeeping. If I am being true to my beliefs about the necessary and continual shift of language, I cannot insist on “proper” grammar for myself.” I too went through this initiatory shift as an English teacher — I think of it as imagining that I was teaching classical music before realizing that it is more like jazz. How much music we would lose, in the diverse ways in which people around the world use English, if we only agreed that one way was worth hearing. I love the topic of this post as well — email signatures can be such rich spaces, for how few words they involve, for creating more room for identity and deeper, better conversations. Grateful for all of it.
Thank you for this thoughtful and insightful piece, which I found via Brianne’s crosspost. I am hesitantly claiming the d-word (disabled) as its a scary word, and I have, I hope, enough privilege to disclose without severe penalty.
I love this. I love how your signature has freed you of your own self imposed expectations but also helps to set new norms. I never thought of grammar as being a gatekeeper but as I reflect I know I have definitely fallen into an unconscious bias when reading a poorly written email or even a mixup of your and your. We don’t know what everyone’s circumstances are and should not judge so quickly.
Amanda!! Thank you for always being on my team :,)
Erin, this is such an interesting and helpful post. I appreciate how you explain the various levels of disclosure and what you decided on, how it works well. I love how others could take inspiration from it and adapt something similar. Thank you!
Thank you so much Brianna! :) I always think my pieces are too long or confuse the point, so the feedback really helps
“The funny part is, the longer I taught high school English, the more convinced I became that grammar is a form of gatekeeping. If I am being true to my beliefs about the necessary and continual shift of language, I cannot insist on “proper” grammar for myself.” I too went through this initiatory shift as an English teacher — I think of it as imagining that I was teaching classical music before realizing that it is more like jazz. How much music we would lose, in the diverse ways in which people around the world use English, if we only agreed that one way was worth hearing. I love the topic of this post as well — email signatures can be such rich spaces, for how few words they involve, for creating more room for identity and deeper, better conversations. Grateful for all of it.
Now that you mention the economy of words here, it really is just like poetry! Thank you for this comment that I just saw :)
“email signatures can be such rich spaces, for how few words they involve, for creating more room for identity and deeper, better conversations.”
Thank you for this thoughtful and insightful piece, which I found via Brianne’s crosspost. I am hesitantly claiming the d-word (disabled) as its a scary word, and I have, I hope, enough privilege to disclose without severe penalty.