Line-wrap / quote-level damage
This is the part I am too interested in. A message can survive dozens of forwards while the paragraphs slowly collapse.
clean:
Forward this to ten people before Friday.
after wrapping:
> Forward this to ten people before
> Friday.
after another forward:
>> Forward this to ten people before
>> Friday.
| Damage | What changes |
|---|---|
| 72-character wrapping | Long sentences break in the middle of phrases. |
| Quote markers | Rows of `>` make the copy look older and harder to edit. |
| Broken URLs | Links split across lines and become two pieces of text. |
| Missing paragraph breaks | Warnings become denser and more urgent by accident. |
| Signature drift | A footer becomes part of the message body. |
For phrases that recur across families regardless of formatting, see phrase frequency notes.