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I don't use "To Whom It May Concern" as a salutation. If I were to use it as a salutation I would write "To whom it may concern." If I know only the organization or business, I write "[Dear] org/bus representative". (e.g. Dear Red Cross representative; Dear Kiva.org representative; Amazon.com representative). If I want to express the thought of "to whom it may concern" I use "to all concerned." As a salutation, I capitalize only the first letters that would be capitalized in plain text: the first letter and proper nouns and titles.
So my generic reference letters start:
"To all concerned,"
That is my own, personal style.
When there is a well-established phrase, I'm loathe to change it unless its patently offensive.
When one says, "Winston tastes good AS a cigarette should, the reader pays attention to the grammar and the arrogance of the writer, and completely ignores anything that's being said about cigarettes, taste, and Winstons. If readers are going to miss the pint,why bother writing anything at all?
Wow. That is some greeting. It looks like the word "GREETING" was intended as a placeholder for a personalized salutation, but that such personalization never was implemented. On second look, could it mean that GREETING is the label for the section in which they tell you where and when to report, with the IMPORTANT NOTICE section being the meat of the letter?
I find it hard to believe that the word GREETING was intended to be the actual greeting! But then, it is a government document.
deaconB said
When there is a well-established phrase, I'm loathe to change it unless its patently offensive.When one says, "Winston tastes good AS a cigarette should, the reader pays attention to the grammar and the arrogance of the writer, and completely ignores anything that's being said about cigarettes, taste, and Winstons. If readers are going to miss the pint,why bother writing anything at all?
C'mon, it's not arrogance to think that language sounds wrong when it isn't formed as we were taught – excuse me, like we were taught. I don't know how common the use of like was at the time those ads came out, but it certainly wasn't much in evidence where I came from, and the form of that phrase did exactly what it was supposed to: got in(to) our faces and stuck in our brains because it clashed with the norm. Where you hear arrogance on one side, I hear boorishness on the other. I still cringe when I hear someone say something like, "I went to the coffee shop, like always.", but I try not to let I show. Having learned something in the past few years about the variety and impermanence of usage and meaning, I've put my high horse out to pasture.
tromboniator said
deaconB said
When there is a well-established phrase, I'm loathe to change it unless its patently offensive.When one says, "Winston tastes good AS a cigarette should, the reader pays attention to the grammar and the arrogance of the writer, and completely ignores anything that's being said about cigarettes, taste, and Winstons. If readers are going to miss the pint,why bother writing anything at all?
C'mon, it's not arrogance to think that language sounds wrong when it isn't formed as we were taught – excuse me, like we were taught.
"To whom it may concern" has been THE accepted phrase used in writing to a person whose name we don't know since before the typewriter was invented. If you were taught something else, you are incredibly old.
I don't know how common the use of like was at the time those ads came out, but it certainly wasn't much in evidence where I came from, and the form of that phrase did exactly what it was supposed to: got in(to) our faces and stuck in our brains because it clashed with the norm.
If you have a time machine, and want to write something prior to 1954, it certainly would be more acceptable to write"tastes good as a cigarette should". On the other hand, when I write something today, I'm dealing with a culture that had Winston as one of the biggest advertisers before the government banned those ads in the 1970s - and "tastes good as a cigarette should" sounds right to most people from so much repetition.Hey asshole" may be more accurate than saying "Dear Mr, Doe" but that novel salutation guarantees your letter will be ineffective.
Similarly, if one writes a letter of recommendation that starts out with something other than "to whom it may concern, one raises a read flag in the mind of the recipient. If you are unaware of the customs of our society, or even worse, you are deliberately ignoring them, why should they give your opinion any consideration? It's like wearing a dark suit with a red tie to a business meeting. It doesn't make your opinions any more valid, but as Mark Twain pointed out, naked people have little or no influence on society.
I still cringe when I hear someone say something like, "I went to the coffee shop, like always.", but I try not to let I shows
And I try to conceal my horror when someone pronounced "teat" as "teet", "vistual" a "vick-you-wool" or harassment as "Harris mint". But if you'd rather be right than be president, you need not put ink to paper for that. If a letter needs to do something, people need to pay attention to the body, rather than to the boilerplate.
deaconB said
If you have a time machine, and want to write something prior to 1954, it certainly would be more acceptable to write"tastes good as a cigarette should". On the other hand, when I write something today, I'm dealing with a culture that had Winston as one of the biggest advertisers before the government banned those ads in the 1970s - and "tastes good as a cigarette should" sounds right to most people from so much repetition.Hey asshole" may be more accurate than saying "Dear Mr, Doe" but that novel salutation guarantees your letter will be ineffective.
Similarly, if one writes a letter of recommendation that starts out with something other than "to whom it may concern, one raises a read flag in the mind of the recipient. If you are unaware of the customs of our society, or even worse, you are deliberately ignoring them, why should they give your opinion any consideration? It's like wearing a dark suit with a red tie to a business meeting. It doesn't make your opinions any more valid, but as Mark Twain pointed out, naked people have little or no influence on society.
I'm now remembering a cartoon from back in the late '60s or early '70s that showed a speaker at the lectern saying "Good evening, gentlemen and ladies". Every member of his audience had a different thought-bubble in response to the unconventional word-order, from "feminist" to "chauvinist" to "smart aleck" to "innovator".
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