# Brevity in email addresses is a wonderful thing. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 24, 2008, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555 "2008-12-24T16:12:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/1 "2008-12-24T16:12:35Z")
I wonder sometimes, who thinks of these domain names that some companies have? Mine at work is simple, it’s three letters. First name dot last name @ Blah Blah Blah. In rewards for the forward thinking of whomever chooses these things I almost always get emails when they’re sent to me. The same can’t be said for some of the places I do business with. Why on earth would you choose something like: Bob.Johnson @Hoorayforyouforchoosingourcompanytodobusinesswith.net. Is is any wonder that you seem to never, ever get any of the emails we send out? Why on earth would someone choose such a complicated email domain name? It’s not clever, it’s not helpful, it’s not even smart. Also a lot of the fields that I can populate with your information aren’t long enough to contain this staggering work of corporate genius and it cuts off the last half of your stupid email so nobody knows where to send them or someone makes a typo in your vapor stream of letters too. What the hell people? ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/2 "2008-12-24T16:19:20Z")
Dilbert’s pointy hair boss ruminating on why an employee doesn’t like her company assigned email: “That Brenda Utthole is such a whiner…” ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/3 "2008-12-24T16:52:16Z")
Mine at my last employer’s was anne.neville.nonemployee @ [evilco.com](http://evilco.com)(name of company changed to protect the not-so-innocent, and of course it used my real name and not my Dope name). Way to go- long _and_ constantly reminding me of my second-class status as Contractor Scum. ---
**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/4 "2008-12-24T19:29:34Z")
Oh yeah. My work email has my first initial and last name, which is no problem, but after the @ is our company name, divided by a dash (e.g. [abercrombie-fitch.com](http://abercrombie-fitch.com)). It’s long and the dash is kind of a pain in the butt. ---
**Author:** ![corkboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@corkboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corkboard)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/5 "2008-12-24T19:47:36Z")
I have a friend whose email is the first initial of his first name, at his company name, which is 5 letters long. (“A @ bcdef” type of thing). Now that’s brevity. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/6 "2008-12-24T20:32:13Z")
I once had a remote acquaintance named Wes whose company email address policy was the user’s first name concatenated with the first letter of the user’s last name. But in his case, they decided to make an exception upon seeing westink@ [company.com](http://company.com) ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/7 "2008-12-24T21:44:31Z")
Back in the day I had an account on a backbone machine (back when email addresses included routing info). Everyone would mail to me because I was easy to reach from everywhere (telemark@decvax) and then I’d reply to get the route. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/8 "2008-12-24T21:53:22Z")
I have the exact opposite problem. My company is known as XXXX YYYY. We’re often referred to as YYYY for short. My email is [firstname.lastname@YYYY.com](mailto:firstname.lastname@YYYY.com) If someone emails me at [firstname.lastname.@xxxxyyyyy.com](mailto:firstname.lastname.@xxxxyyyyy.com) I won’t get it. Of course [www.xxxxyyyy.com](http://www.xxxxyyyy.com) redirects to our website, [yyyy.com](http://yyyy.com) ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brevity-in-email-addresses-is-a-wonderful-thing/478555/9 "2008-12-24T22:02:15Z")
> [@Rico](#): > > Dilbert’s pointy hair boss ruminating on why an employee doesn’t like her company assigned email: > > “That Brenda Utthole is such a whiner…” I had a trainer back in the day who had a first name that began with S and the last name was Odom. Which of course is [sodom@blah.com](mailto:sodom@blah.com) To make things even funnier, her mother was a very devout christian and apparently _really_ did not like the email address. Slee