Short Is Not Rude

Many first messages begin with an apology. Sorry for my English. Sorry, I write short. Sorry if this is not polite. The apology is kind, and it is also not needed. A short message is not rude. In a booking thread, it is usually exactly the message the reply hopes for.

Why people apologise

In many languages and cultures, a request is wrapped in politeness. A greeting, a few words about yourself, a question about the other person, then the request, then thanks and more politeness at the end. Written in a second language, all of that takes time and effort. When a guest cannot manage it, they feel that their message is bare, even cold. So they apologise for it.

But the thread is not a letter. It is a place to agree a booking. What it needs is the facts, clearly. Everything else is welcome, but optional.

What short gets right

A short message has one fact on each line. The address. The day and the hour. The length. The name, or who is free. How many people. When a message has those five lines and nothing else, the reply can answer in one message. There is nothing to search for and nothing to guess.

A long, polite message can hide a fact inside a sentence about something else. The hour may be in the middle of a story about the flight. The room number may be in the last line, after the thanks. The reply has to find each fact before it can answer. And sometimes a fact is missing, because the writer ran out of patience before they reached it.

What short can miss

Short is good, but too short is not. A message that says only tonight, one hour, is short and incomplete. It has no address, no hour and no name. The reply then has to ask three questions, and three messages take longer than one. So short means one line per fact, not fewer facts. The page with a booking message to copy gives the five lines, ready to fill in.

Replies are short too

The replies on this site are written in the same way. Short sentences. One fact at a time. No long greetings. This is not coldness either. It is a way to make sure the reply can be read quickly, understood at the first reading, and translated well by an app if needed. A guest reading in a second language should not have to work through three polite lines to find the price.

Politeness that costs nothing

If you want to be polite, and many guests do, there are words that add warmth without adding length. Hello at the start. Thanks at the end. Please before a question. These are small and clear, and they do not hide anything. They are welcome. What is not needed is the apology.

The same in the room

The thinking carries on into the visit. Short words work better than long ones there as well. Slower is clearer than could you perhaps go a little more slowly. Stop is clearer than I think maybe we should pause. Neither short word is rude. Both are easier to hear and easier to act on. The page on yes, slower and stop collects the words that do this work.

Short, and still complete

There is a simple test for a short message. Imagine a reader who knows nothing about you. Could that reader tell where, when, how long and for whom, from your lines alone? If yes, the message is complete, however short it is. If one of those four is missing, add a line. Everything else, from the reason for your trip to the number of your flight, is extra. It is fine to include, and it is fine to leave out. The reply will not ask for it.

A message worth sending

So if you are about to apologise for a short message, do not. Send the five lines. Add hello and thanks if you like. And if your English is basic, you can say so in one line at the end, without sorry: English basic. That is information, not an apology, and it helps the reply choose the plainest words.

A booking made with four clear lines is not a lesser booking. It is the kind this site is built around.