Phrase frequency notes

These are informal notes, not statistics. I use "common" when a line appears in several families and "usually later" when it tends to show up after a shorter copy.

Phrase	Where it appears	Ravi's note
please forward	warnings, office notices	Often near the beginning in warnings and near the end in chains.
send this to	chain letters	The number changes more often than the instruction.
everyone you know	later warning copies	Broader than early office-specific versions.
this is not a joke	warnings, fake virus notes	Usually added to make a copied warning sound less like a forward.
better safe than sorry	warnings	Common closing line when the message cannot prove itself.
sorry if you've seen this	friendship chains, office forwards	A polite apology that also admits the message is circulating widely.

For the larger message structures these phrases support, continue to Repeated Message Pattern Notes.