It is the way we converse with each other, time-shifting across continents, writing in the wee hours of the morning, reaching out when the thought of a friend or loved one crosses our mind. We pass on gossip and flip comments. We repeat jokes. We misspell words and speak in shorthand. We are emphatically opinionated.
Email has all the authority of a phone conversation.
It is not print. It is not even the Web. But it repeats things verbatim. That fools people. It gives email authority it doesn't deserve.