http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12247262

Wanted to see what people felt about this....

I'm an informal kinda guy and I feel that as we don't have vous or usted equivalents in our language any more we ought to be able to relax a little. Of course, that's at odds with a lot of "polite" society. Thoughts?

If it is formal it is Dear, informal them it will be hi. Simples.

Dear okenobi,

I don't think I've ever started an email with "Dear..." - even with clients. It's usually a "Hi..." for clients or a "Hey..." for friends/family.
I reserve my "Dear..." for written letters, which are few and far between.

+1

I universally start formal e-mails and letters with Dear Mr/Mrs X, I'll only ever start with "Hi" if it's informal or casual, or an eBay message.

Yo dudes and dudettes;

I use "Dear Mr soandso" / "Dear Sir" when I want to sound condescending, usually to old people or clients who are being particularly retarded and obnoxious. The appropriate "Sincerely" or "Yours Faithfully" would be used, as per 17th century written protocol.

When replying to someone I've never communicated with before, then I adopt whatever level of greeting they initiate.

I use "Hi Bob," when emailing Bob.

I usually close with "Regards,".

If an email develops into one of those 2 line ping-pong games, then after the 2nd or 3rd reply I drop the greeting all together. It sounds terse to start an email with no greeting, but it's ridiculous to have the phrase "Hi Bob," a hundred times on one page.

With people I'm closer to, I often drop the name and use "Hi," or "Yo," and "Cheers".

Love and kisses,

JJ

I use "Dear ..." pretty much without fail.

I use the next phrase, title or name to convey the emotional intent.

I write whatever I would say to them on an answerphone, it's basically an answerphone message typed out anyway.


It's complete [LIFTED] like this that winds me up, it's a fallacious, priggish argument proferred by someone simultaneously pompous about education "standards" and ignorant of the true nature of language.

m8, I tink theyve kind of got a point. d purpose of RitN eng iz 2 convey info - f it's illegible, badly RitN o consistently in4ML, thN ther's d potential 4 misunderstanding.
2 b honest, we had a complaint letR @ wrk (bout me) whch apErD 2 b RitN by a drunken 8 yr. old w a paSN acquaintance w d eng lngwij. c%d I tAk it CreslE? n.


& dun git me stRtD on d uz of TXT spk n public.

OFC, LOL, ROFL, Fubar, SNAFU, NIMBY, Yuppy, pwn, homey, n00b.

There are ways of playing around with language and if everyone goes along with it then it's perfectly understandable. However if like your above post you create something that doesn't play along with convention, it's barely readable.

The street talk of Baltimore would actually be perfectly grammatical, and acceptable, if you're emailing other Baltimore gang members. No one however, speaks like your above post, so the law should be more like "when in Rome..". Rather than "stick rigidly to an unchanging set of ageing universal traditions".

I'm told (by the internet) that the preceding post is in fact perfectly acceptable txt lingo.
LOL n00b yourself.

Indeed, when in Rome and all that, but for the majority of exchanges we need some form of standardised structure to the language. If your proposed Baltimore street hustler was to be sending an email regarding a matter more formal than 'Hi mate are you available for high jinks and shenanigans on Friday night?' (or whatever the devil those kids get up to) then I'd suggest adhering to the regular structure, particularly if it's to someone you don't know or haven't met.

Where's Heather when you need her?

Hi for colleagues.
Dear for people I've never met.
Wasssuuuuuuuuuuuuuup! for my mates (the inconsistent spelling of this particular greeting is only going to cause further concern to pedants).

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, for formal unknown

Sehr geehrter Herr X
Sehr geehrte Frau Y

for business E-Mails, talking to my superiors or colleagues

Hallo X for talking to people I "dutze".

Some interesting responses. I dislike the use of "Dear" as a catch-all. But then I dislike catch-all solutions to anything (which according to anthropologist, Dr. Helen Fisher, is because I'm a Negotiator. Look it up, fascinating work.) I prefer to tailor my language to the person(s) I'm communicating with. However, I do feel that Dear is too much for a lot of correspondence and Hi suffices. That said, I tend to use Dear when I don't have (or don't feel I have permission to use) a forename. "Dear Mr X" works better than "Hi Mr x". Where of course "Hi Bob" is my preference over "Dear Bob". If I have a level of familiarity, I often dispense with the greeting as there's no need.

Fundamentally though, this sums up my feelings about this sort of debate.



Yes we need a standard template by which all English speakers can communicate, but at the same time, language is not static and like it or not, the internet and mobile communications have accelerated the transformation of the language. Whilst txt speak may annoy me, I believe it has a place in a standard SMS, typed out on a standard numpad, for brevity's sake. That doesn't degrade my native tongue. Using it when a Qwerty keyboard is on hand can be used for irony/sarcasm/comedy, but outside of that, it's just laziness or ignorance. But given email has now been around for 20yrs, am I concerned about the loss of "Dear"? In a word, no.

Indeed.

We have never had the art of letter writing in this country. Letters were written and sent by a privileged few up until the last few decades; most people had neither the facility nor the opportunity. Yet even though letter writing was commonly taught, most have used it rarely if ever.

All language these days is mongrelised slang anyway. Vast chunks of our supposedly standardised language came about through laziness, ignorance, conquest or obsolescence. The idea that there is one standard form of English is rubbish. The thought of the present "correct" English being the best is ar*e-gravy of the highest order (ref. my previous utterances on the subject of "~ough" and "th~")