I wonder who invented the “subject line” in emails anyways? What’s with that? Do I always need to have a fancy subject for my messages? Why so much pressure to come up with something witty and descriptive? Why?
A subject line should give focus to the email and suggest what the body is about. I believe it came about because the email format was basically a complete crib of the memorandum, which featured a subject line. The memorandum probably had a subject line to indicate to the reader what the memo was about. Interestingly, the possible predecessor to the memorandum–the telegram–had no such subject line.
One response to “Stuff and things”
A subject line should give focus to the email and suggest what the body is about. I believe it came about because the email format was basically a complete crib of the memorandum, which featured a subject line. The memorandum probably had a subject line to indicate to the reader what the memo was about. Interestingly, the possible predecessor to the memorandum–the telegram–had no such subject line.