What if someone takes the kisses at the end of my emails seriously?

Very good piece from Giles Coren (as usual) on the intrusive and aggressive act of putting ‘xx’ at the end of emails.

I had been thinking pretty much the same thing. I suppose one could quote Derrida and the structuralists and insist that there is no one-to-one relationship between the signifier (the ‘xx’) and the thing signified (putting your tongue halfway down some babe’s throat). There certainly isn’t when I do it. But there’s the fear. What if the recipient isn’t a structuralist?

Incidentally, if you want to see where we are right now with this issue, just read the comments from Caroline Kirkpatrick.