When writing a business letter, what’s a modern salutation that doesn’t sound as stuffy as “Dear Sir” or “Dear Madam”? “To Whom It May Concern,” perhaps? The answer depends on the context and the intended audience. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Fitting Salutations”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Mike McDonald from San Diego.
Hey, Mike, welcome. What can we do for you?
Well, I’d like to perhaps put out a challenge to you and Grant and your listeners on something that has bothered me for some time.
And that is a lack of a modern salutation for the heading of letters.
And you’re talking about letters that are printed out on paper?
Yes. Well, to the extent anybody writes letters anymore these days, you know, typically you put, you know, dear sir or dear madam or gentleman.
And those terms seem to be old fashioned and they’re also gender specific, which is sort of inappropriate in today’s sort of modern world.
And so I’m looking for a more appropriate salutation that we can use that sort of reflects our times.
So dude isn’t working for you?
Dude.
I think here in Southern California probably would be very appropriate.
It might be.
It’s like, dude, I’ve got a business proposition for you.
Or dog.
And so obviously we’re interested here in levels of formality.
I mean, are you making business proposals?
Are you writing your nephew?
Who are you writing to?
Yeah, who’s your audience?
Well, typically people use – if they try to use something else, they may use something to whom it may concern, and that seems very impersonal and sort of awkward.
What I use – and I’ve got to say I don’t really like it, but it’s the best I’ve come up with – is I sort of focus on what the person does.
And this is typically in more of a business environment.
So if somebody is a banker or a person with the DMV, the Department of Motor Vehicles, I typically use dear banker person or dear DMV person.
But again, I don’t think it’s a very good solution.
So I’m looking for an additional solution.
Mike, to clarify, you’re saying that you actually use the words DMV person or you use their name?
This is when you don’t know who the individual is you’re writing to.
Okay.
And do you know how that goes over?
Has anybody reacted to that?
No, I’ve never had a reaction back.
But it gets the job done is what you’re saying.
It’s just inelegant.
It gets the job done, yeah.
How do you feel about leaving the greeting or salutation off altogether?
I sort of feel like we’ve been so ingrained to have some type of a salutation to sort of start the text of a letter.
You’re right, and it’s frustrating that these terms that used to be so proper and just an easy thing to fall back on just seem stuffy.
I mean, older than madmen.
I do use to whom it may concern, but we’re talking like IRS level of letters, right?
We’re talking like the people who could do you serious damage or do you serious good if, you know, the people who have a lot of control over what’s about to happen to you.
Yeah, I do that when I feel huffy.
You know, it’s so context sensitive.
Well, Mike, what we’re going to do, and we know people out there have already encountered this and are going to have answers for you and for us.
And we welcome those answers.
How should Mike be addressing letters to handwritten letters or printed letters when he doesn’t know who he’s writing to?
To whom he is writing?
Email words@waywordradio.org.
Mike, we’ll see what we come up with, all right?
And we will be looking at the top of those emails to see how they salute us, if they do at all.
Okay, well, thank you very much.
All right. Cheers. Thanks for calling.
Thanks, Mike.
All right. Bye-bye.
Bye now.
