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If I'd like to let someone know they can reach me via [email protected], as well as via Twitter and Facebook, what's the most correct way of writing?

Or simply none/a combination of the above? Thank you very much.

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  • What's wrong with 'contact/reach me'?
    – user13107
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 13:25
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    Any of at, on or via is fine with an email address. Hit me up is surely not!
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 13:29
  • If I see "hit me up" I think it means "ask me for money".
    – GEdgar
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 13:37
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    I'm with those who deplore this sense of "hit me up" - it's not relevant to the question, but I wish OP had just stuck with the standard "contact me". Anyway, @Andrew's given the answer there. I'd just add that (semi-formal) "via" is a bad fit with OP's slangy usage, and that it's more likely to be "at [email address]", but "on [Facebook, Twitter, etc.]"
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 13:52
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    IMO, this is not really general reference. It's non-mainstream slang when used in this sense.
    – coleopterist
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 17:35

4 Answers 4

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As others have noted, "hit me up" is not normally understood to mean "contact me". In the context, where you are immediately following it with an email address, it's pretty clear what you mean. But if you just said to someone, "Hey, hit me up later", I think they'd be unsure what you meant. As GEdgar says, in English "hit me up" is an old slang term for "borrow money from me".

That said, "at" is used to indicate that what follows is a location. "I am at home." "We met at the hardware store."

"On" is used to indicate attached to or resting atop what follows. What follows "on" is usually an object, like "on the table", but it could be a location when we think of the location as something you stand upon, like "on the beach" or "on a road".

"Via" means that what follows is a route or way-point. "We traveled from France to Germany via Switzerland."

So we normally say "at" when giving an address. This applies whether it's a street address, phone number, email address, and any other sort of address I can think of. "You can contact me at [email protected]", "Call me at 734-555-1111", "The store is at 23 Elm St", etc.

We say something is "on" a Website. "This post is on Stack Exchange." "I am on Facebook". Personally I don't think it makes sense to say "You can contact me on/at Facebook", because we don't really "contact" people with Facebook. You might "Visit my page on Facebook" or "Leave a message for me on Facebook". I think either "on" or "at" would work for messages on a website, because we think of a website as both a place where things can be "at", and as a surface that things can be "on". Like you could say, "Leave a note at my house", but you wouldn't normally say "Leave a note on my house" unless you meant that they should write it on the walls. But we do say "Leave a note on the bulletin board."

I wouldn't use "via" for an address. I suppose you could say that the message is travelling through your email account to get to you, so it's going "via my email address". But I've never heard someone say that. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's odd.

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  • I agree with the majority of what you wrote, but it would be wrong for someone to assume that you've listed the only ways on be used, when you said, " 'On' is used to indicate attached to or resting atop what follows." This topic has been touched on before, but on has several other uses – some idiomatic – beyond those. You can be on time, on schedule, or on hold; your jacket could be on or off, a stove could be on or off; I can be in a funk or on a roll; I can be on board or in sharp disagreement. Also, you can contact people on Facebook, same way you can on Skype (I've chatted on FB).
    – J.R.
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 14:53
  • @J.R. Quite true about "on". I was thinking of "on" in relation to places. I should have added some qualifiers. And frankly, now that I think about it, it would be tough to define the context that I was thinking within.
    – Jay
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 20:14
  • @J.R. RE Facebook chat: Okay, I wasn't aware of that. (I've used Facebook but not much.) In that case my intuition says that you should say "chat with me on Facebook". How do you chat "on" something? The traditional use of prepositions seems a little strained. I guess you could say "We talked on the beach" as well as "We talked at the beach." "Contact me at Facebook" vs "Contact me on Facebook" ... I guess both are good. Anybody have a reason to prefer one or the other?
    – Jay
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 20:20
  • How do you chat "on" Facebook? Same way you chat "on" the phone, I guess ~ or hear a song "on" the radio. I could go on and on about this :^)
    – J.R.
    Commented Sep 20, 2012 at 0:02
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I don't think the standard structure involves providing an address after the idiom. The phrase is usually used as follows:

My address is [email protected]. Hit me up sometime!

Or as Urban Dictionary illustrates:

Just hit me up on my celly, I'll pick up right away.

If you're requesting a response, a similar alternative would be the phrase, "hit me back".

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The best customary usage in the situation you describe would be:

"Feel free to hit me up at [email protected], as well as on Twitter and Facebook."

It's the indirect object that controls, not the "hit me up" idiom. The email is an address, so it's "at"; Twitter and Facebook are media platforms, so "on".

"Via" is technically usable in either case as well, it's just a bit clunkier (moreso for the email address than the web sites) and more old-fashioned, so a mismatch for the probably-trying-too-hard hipness of "hit me up".

Apparently alone among responders to this question, I am perfectly familiar with the idiom.

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  • Incidentally, I have seen this post. Now that I am an English-as-a-second language learner, I have observed that the sentences in the actual question are not grammatically correct: a lack of parallelism. Am I right? If no, please explain me the wrong thing in my observation? I may sound to be fastidious but still I don't want to be in doubt about the rules I am following to learn English, and hence; I am asking this question. I my opinion it should be: "Feel free to hit me up via [email protected], as well as via Twitter or/and via Facebook." Please correct me If I am wrong.
    – Manoj
    Commented Sep 20, 2012 at 16:49
  • @Manoj: Parallelism isn't required in this circumstance because the indirect objects don't accept the same prepositions. Your example is correct enough, but clunky and excessively verbose. "Feel free to hit me up via [email protected], as well as via Twitter or Facebook" would be a less overwrought formulation using "via" for both cases (which I did note is valid), or the second "via" could even be skipped.
    – chaos
    Commented Sep 20, 2012 at 18:18
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"To hit on" means to make contact with. Usually in a sexual way, and not necessarily in a very pleasant way.

So to say, "Please feel free to hit on me' is like saying, "Please feel free to contact me".

Because 'hitting on someone' is a bad thing to do. To invite someone to 'hit on me' is a funny thing to ask.

It reminds me of Ian Dury's single "Hit me with your rhythm stick".

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    Maybe it's a national/regional idiom, but to me, "to hit on" means to make a romantic or sexual proposition. We say, "Bob was hitting on Sally at the party" meaning he was asking her for a date or a sexual romp. If a woman told me, "Feel free to hit on me", I'd take that as an invitation to do far more than send her an email. Maybe the meaning is different in the UK or wherever.
    – Jay
    Commented Sep 19, 2012 at 20:24
  • I have only come across this expression in American movies. Usually in the context 'some guy was hitting on me in the bus' in which the romantic proposal is received negatively. Rather like the older expression, 'that man was making a pass at me'. Why is it, women don't like it when men find them attractive? And, why do women dress in a way that encourages men to find them attractive?
    – Robin Michael
    Commented Sep 20, 2012 at 10:10
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    Do you live somewhere other than America? As an American, I hear this expression fairly often. As to the tail end of your comment, it's tough enough to understand English grammar, I don't claim to begin to understand women.
    – Jay
    Commented Sep 20, 2012 at 14:05

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