please reply at your earliest instead of please reply at your earliest convenience

[Unregistered]

Can we use "Please reply at your earliest" instead of "Please reply at your earliest convenience". Can we make use of the concept of elliptical sentence in the above situation?

 

[pyoung]

Please reply at your earliest convenience is what you want to say. Using the ellipsis will just sound incomplete.


Yours,

Petra

 

[query]

Can we use "Please reply at your earliest" instead of "Please reply at your earliest convenience". Can we make use of the concept of elliptical sentence in the above situation?

The nature of ellipsis is to get the sense when meaning is conveyed by the sentence before. I feel that both of them do convey the same. what do you say Petra.

 

[David L.]

"Please reply at your earliest." might be something you would write in an email to a colleague with whom you have had enough contact to be on first name terms, but preserving the fact that this is a formal piece of correspondence. It's too business-like for correspondence with a friend: e.g. 'email me as soon as you find out!'

The full bit, "Please reply at your earliest convenience", is de rigueur for regular business correspondence.