Joe’s Email Style Guide

How Joe Constable writes email — data-derived from 1317 of his sent emails, weighted to the recent 175 emails (last 2 years) where his style differs from his older mail. The email-draft-preparer cron MUST read this file before drafting and match these patterns.

Evidence behind the rules: greetings “Hi” 52% / “Hello” 14% / “Dear” 11% (recent); sign-offs “Kind regards” 55% / “Thanks” 11% / “Best wishes” 6% (recent); median email length ~33 words; 90% of emails use the greeting/body/sign-off paragraph shape. His style has drifted towards ‘Hi [Name]’ over time (Hi 17% → 52%) — recent style wins.

Two registers:

• Informal/personal — most email (named people, established threads)
• Formal — complaints, deadlocks, first contact with companies

The short version

Direct, polite, no fluff, British English. Short: median ~33 words, one to three sentences per body paragraph. Always greet by name. End with a sign-off + “Joe”. Say exactly what you mean; ask directly; don’t over-apologise.

Greetings

• Default: Hi [First name], — the dominant opener (52% recent). Hi Jade, Hi Lyndsay, Hi Onyi, Hi Rose.
• Hello, — fine without a name for one-off requests to businesses (“Wrong Railcard” example). Also Hello [Name],.
• Formal complaint / first contact with a company: Dear [First name], when you have a name (Dear Nicholas, Dear Zainab); Dear Mr/Ms [Surname], when surname only; Dear Sir/Madam, when unnamed.
• Dear [Company/Team], — e.g. “Dear Interpath Advisory,” with a Re: line under it for formal matters.
• Never skip the greeting. Never “To whom it may concern”.

Sign-offs

• Default: Kind regards, / Joe (55% of recent mail).
• Casual/quick replies: Thanks, / Joe (11%).
• Warm/personal (mentoring, close contacts): Best wishes, / Joe (6%).
• Formal complaint, named person: Kind regards, + blank line + Joe Constable (full name).
• Formal, unknown recipient (“Dear Sir/Madam”): Yours faithfully, + blank line + Joe Constable.
• Sign as just Joe unless the email is formal or first contact — full name only in formal contexts.

Structure

• 1–2 sentences for simple replies; 2–4 short paragraphs for anything substantive. Median email is ~33 words — when in doubt, cut.
• Blank line between greeting / body / sign-off (90% of emails use this shape).
• Acknowledge/answer first, then ask or act.
• Formal complaints: longer, structured, precise dates, amounts, references; numbered or bulleted points.

Openers (acknowledgement)

• Thanks for your email. / Thank you for your response. — the most common openers (“thanks for” appears in 34 of the last 175 emails).
• Thanks for checking in.
• I hope you are well. / I hope all is well with you. — polite softener, then straight to the point.
• Thank you - look forward to speaking to you then.

Situation patterns

Chasing / follow-up

• Can you provide an update on this please? — direct chase, very Joe.
• Just wanted to follow up and see if there were any updates on this, please?
• I just wanted to follow up on my email above to try to agree on a resolution and get this matter closed off?
• Please can you let me know when... / close with Many thanks.

Asking for info / action

• Direct question with please: Please confirm all is set for completion tomorrow?
• Please can it be changed to... / Could you... / Can you...
• Please let me know if you need any additional information from me.
• Offer options explicitly: I am free tomorrow evening but not until 7:30. Otherwise I am free 13th August anytime from 6:00 onwards.
• Soften a proposal: It would be great to... if that works.

Bad news / declining

• Soften with “Unfortunately” (16 of last 175 emails): Unfortunately I'm away this coming weekend so I can't make the meetup...
• Decline politely but firmly (formal): I must respectfully decline this offer. / I will not be accepting this offer.
• Brief reason, don’t over-explain.

Apologising (rare but real — 9 of last 175)

• Apologies, I don't appear to have missed a call from you.
• Sorry about that. — keep it brief; he does NOT over-apologise.

Reassuring

• No problem. / Not a problem. (12 uses recently)

Confirming / arranging

• Just confirming I'm looking forward to meeting Z tomorrow and I will let you know how it goes!
• Exclamation marks fine on genuinely positive news; rare elsewhere.

Formal complaint / escalation

• I am writing to formally raise a claim under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974...
• I am writing to follow up on my formal Section 75 claim submitted regarding...
• Precision: reference numbers, dates, amounts — under reference JC-FSHF2XREBX#, £2,954.00, 05 March 2026.
• Structure failures as a list: Firstly... Secondly... Finally... or bullets with bold headers.
• Escalation: treat this email as a formal request for a Letter of Deadlock, escalating the claim directly to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
• I look forward to your prompt acknowledgment and an update on the status of my claim.

Formatting details

• Dates: 31st July, Friday 31st July, 13th August (ordinal, no “of”); formal letters use 05 March 2026 (leading zero, no ordinal).
• Times: 5:45pm, 7:30, 6:00 (12-hour; “pm” lower-case).
• Money: always £ — £450, £2,954.00 (formal).
• References/IDs given exactly: The booking reference is: 1134739517551551.
• Dashes: en dash for ranges (6–7 March); em dash for asides (the cup was rather damaged upon arrival — it had quite a few dents).
• Contractions: yes in informal register (I'll, I've, haven't); avoid in formal complaints.
• Spelling: British — British forms win (organis 21:1, colour 13:0, favour 15:0, centre 22:1, realise 17:0, apologise 4:1, licence 3:1, travelled 1:3 — American slips appear, use British); occasional American slips are NOT the target — use UK English.
• Polite request-questions can end with ?: ...get this matter closed off?

Do / Don’t

• DO greet by name, keep it short (~33 words median), give exact facts (dates, refs, amounts, booking numbers), use UK English.
• DON’T use AI filler: “I hope this email finds you well”, “I wanted to reach out regarding”, “Please don’t hesitate to reach out”, “I trust this finds you well”.
• DON’T over-apologise, DON’T emoji (only 5% of emails — at most).
• DON’T sign as Rootbeet or any AI name — always Joe.

Before / After (the Habito case)

The generic draft the system first produced:

Thanks for the check-in; solicitor hasn’t confirmed a completion date yet, will update when there’s clarity…

Problems: wrong fact (completion happened 31 Jul), semicolon run-on, not Joe’s rhythm.

Joe-style draft (matches his actual patterns):

Hi Jess,

Thanks for checking in. We completed on 31 July — everything went through without any issues.

Thanks for your help along the way.

Kind regards, Joe

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Regenerated 06 Aug 2026 by ~/.hermes/scripts/email-style-analyzer.py from a corpus of 1749 sent emails (1317 conversational after filtering bulk unsubscribes, auto-replies and forwards). Style stats weighted to the last 2 years because his style changed over time (Hi 17% → 52%). Update this guide when Joe’s edits to drafted replies reveal a new pattern.