Our letters give ground without meaning to

Letters written in a hurry do quiet damage. An apology drafted to keep the peace reads later as an admission; a date restated slightly wrongly becomes the record of when things happened; a generous 'we will absorb this one' resurfaces a year on as the precedent for absorbing the next one. None of it feels like concession at the time, and all of it sits in the file, waiting for the day the file is read closely.

Commercial correspondence is evidence written in advance, and it can be drafted that way without turning every letter into a lawyer's letter: the facts stated accurately, the position protected, entitlements kept alive rather than signed away in a pleasantry, and the tone still one a working relationship survives. The discipline is knowing what each letter will look like when it is read against you.