{
  "id": 9208316,
  "title": "Nobody actually writes Best regards",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/22/nobody-actually-writes-best-regards",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-22T16:27:10.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "HackerNoon",
    "slug": "hackernoon",
    "url": "https://hackernoon.com/nobody-actually-writes-best-regards?source=rss"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Every email ends with a final statement, a brief message that signals the conclusion of the correspondence. Traditionally, the formal sign-off \"Best regards\" was expected and taught, but in reality, it turns out to be a weak signal. By analyzing 71,216 real emails from various sources, researchers discovered that gratitude dominates the closing remarks. A staggering 84.7% of Git list contributors close their messages with a version of \"thanks.\" The \"regards\" family, including \"regards,\" \"best regards,\" \"kind regards,\" and \"warm regards,\" makes up 7.9% of closings. In contrast, the formal sign-offs such as \"Sincerely\" and \"Yours truly\" account for a mere 1.3% of closings across both datasets. Surprisingly, spam and phishing messages exhibit a higher level of formality, with the \"regards\" family comprising 51.7% of their closings, compared to just 12.5% of human mail. This finding suggests that the widespread use of \"Best regards\" in emails is not reflective of genuine, professional communication.",
  "summary": "We parsed 71,216 real emails from four public corpora — the Git mailing list (2022–2026), Enron's internal mail (1999–2002), and two decades of spam and phishing — and counted how every one of them ends. \"Best regards\" turns up in 0.71% of human emails: 1 in 141. Most email doesn't close at all, with 69.7% of Git list messages and 57.7% of Enron's carrying no sign-off formula. When people do…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}