I recently noticed that I have been receiving emails, addressed to multiple recipients, with the salutation
Hi both,
In fact I appear to have 34 of them in one of my many inboxes, including two received from different authors today. For me, this is sharply ungrammatical, though I am not sure why. Both is unobjectionable in subject or object position (e.g., Both liked limoncello, She fancies both, etc.) so I am not sure why it is bad in a salutation. A very informal survey of the people who have sent it to me shows two speakers for whom English is their second language (though both have extremely high proficiency) but also several native speakers too. Any ideas?
I think it’s the personhood (i.e. 2nd vs. 3rd). What do you think about “would both like to come?”, when (i) referring to the listener and someone they’re with; (ii) referring to two people not in the conversation?
Sounds a bit formal but it might be okay? Certainly it’s better than “Hi both”…