Uffizi Gallery Director Eike Schmidt has established a set of rules for email etiquette and emailed them to employees, media reports indicate.
First of all, he prohibited bold characters although dimmed underlining is acceptable.
Secondly, Schmidt outlawed excessive punctuation. In other ways, you shouldn`t write like this!!!!! Do you understand?????
Thirdly, capitals should be limited to proper names or a situation where their use is justified by Italian grammar.
Fourth, ellipsis should be avoided as they lack any sense…
Finally, work emails should be “clear, explicit and never allusive”.
Uffizi spokesman Tommaso Galligani stated that the director’s message became “the conversation of the day for many employees in the corridors, at the water cooler or in the café.” He added that the director wanted to prevent email exchanges from turning into informal communication like text chats.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Weissman, a lecturer in cognitive science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US claimed that the director`s circular is an attempt to resist the natural evolution of communication. Text communication is getting closer to the way people speak on a daily basis, he explained.