Anonymous wrote:I’ve never seen that, but it drives me nuts when people drop “to be” from expressions. For example, the car needs washed. His shirt needs cleaned.

You hate modals? Prescriptivists be weird, man. (FYI -- we aren't "dropping" anything. We never had anything there in the first place.)

OP here. I’ve concluded it’s deliberate and not a function of autocorrect. It’s the same two people writing it. And I just got a variation of it from one of them: Let me know if other issues. Sigh. Pretty soon it’ll just be ‘Let questions’.

Srsly?

Be best

Anonymous wrote:To me it’s like “Best,”

Best what? Best wishes? Best thoughts? Best by itself doesn’t mean anything.

It means best regards. Or thank you. Or cheers.

How could writing “best” possibly upset a person?

My annoyance lately is the childish "may you please". So embarrassing.

To me it’s like “Best,”

Best what? Best wishes? Best thoughts? Best by itself doesn’t mean anything.