Forwarding mail
When I'm writing email to one individual, I often don't take the time to carefully phrase the email for public consumption. Sometimes I say things about third parties that aren't entirely complimentary (though I'm rarely outright unpleasant or nasty about third parties in email, I think); sometimes I phrase comments about third parties' actions more strongly than perhaps is warranted.
Which makes it really unfortunate when the recipient of such an email innocently forwards it to the third party in question, or to others connected with the third party in question, usually without realizing that the phrasing may cause offense.
I suppose that old dictum never to say anything in email that you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the newspaper ought to apply to me here. And I suppose one could think of my less-than-complimentary phrasings as talking about someone behind their back.
But really, most of the time it's just shorthand. It's quicker and easier to make generalizations than to carefully be fair and even-handed in every single line of every single email.
I've started saying this explicitly in some emails ("Please do not forward this to anyone, as I haven't taken the time to phrase things carefully enough for public consumption"). But not all. And it seems like people are forwarding my emails to others more and more often lately.
I can't decide whether I'm justified in being annoyed by the forwarding, or whether I'm behaving badly by not being extremely careful how I say things all the time, in every context.