Bring ’em On

Appreciate any feedback/comments.

I look at the email’s closing line and tilt my head a tad to the left, squinting. In context — a colleague circulating an initial draft for team review — and considering the understated source, I expect it’s an ellipsis.

ellipsis, noun:
the omission from speech or writing
of a word or words that are superfluous
or able to be understood from contextual clues
– Oxford Dictionary

We use ellipses a lot in speech, omitting those aforementioned super-fluous words (Retaining only the normally fluous words? Who *is* in charge of this language?) entirely naturally along these well-worn lines.

Start when (you are) ready.
We scored three goals; they scored two (goals).
I ordered the lobster, (I did) not (order) the linguini.

Now in this situation I don’t just expect it’s an ellipsis: I know it is. I know exactly what the author meant, and so do you.

(I’d) appreciate any feedback/comments
(you have on the attached document).

He was not, for example, likely soliciting the response I gave after another email asking for “any comments”:

I like penguins.

But for one glorious moment, I read it not as a mundane request for a standard professional courtesy (nor even as an opportunity to be silly) but as life advice, along these well-worn lines.

Seize the day.
Be in the moment.
Think before you speak.
Buy low; sell high.

OK, maybe not that last one, but you get the drift.

Appreciate any feedback/comments.

Yes. Any negative/destructive ones remind us that our worth does not depend on what others think of us, and even less on what they say of us; any positive/constructive ones help us glow and grow.