I was taught in school that correspondence, both formal and informal, begins with "Dear" and ends "Sincerely," and that is what I have written for most of my life. I suppose that this is still what is taught in the schools, although I get letters all the time with no salutation and no complimentary close, just a signature. I also get unsigned letters.
I did notice that my last "you have already won" letter ended "Sincerely." That's comforting.A glance at my Webster's New Collegiate shows that "Dear" is the preferred salutation of the editors in most cases, but I'm not sure I always want to be called "Dear" or that I really want to refer to my Representative, Congressman Orton, or President Clinton as "Dear."
"Dear Mr. President, Dear Congressman Orton." There is just something about it that doesn't fit. How would these people like to be called "Dear" by a sales clerk. ? Am I addressing the president by the same title his wife uses? "Bill dear!"
It may be that we just don't write personal letters enough to have a standard. Near the end of the quarter I asked a writing class at Snow College how many had written home sometime during the quarter. There were 27 in the class, and two had written home during the past 10 weeks. All had telephoned home numerous times. The students told me that phone calls are easier, and besides, "they are much more personal." Really?
Only a few people in the class had written to anyone during the quarter, but all admitted to enjoying a letter from home and from friends. When I asked if they enjoyed being called "Dear" in the letters, they said that it had never occurred to them to think about that. I expect that "Dear" is not a very modern term of endearment among the younger set. They probably say something like "dude.I'm not completely in tune with these things, but I doubt that "Hey dude" will permanently replace "Dear."
I have solved the problem of what title to use after the "Dear" in my letters. When I don't know if it's "Miss, Mr., Mrs. or Ms.," I write to "Dr."
No one who is not a "Dr." seems to ever be offended by being called a "Dr." It occurred to me that maybe we could promote everyone to "Dr." and substitute it for "Dear." The reader could then decide if "Dr." is a title or if the writer just dropped the vowels from "Dear" to make a non- apostropheed contraction, "Dr."
The problem with "Sincerely" at the end of a letter is that it sounds like a lot of things but sincere. When a note from the IRS ends with "Sincerely," I doubt it. I even doubted the "Sincerely" of the folks who sent me the "you have already won" letter and the people who wrote to tell me that my new Visa Tin card has already been approved with a credit limit that could retire the national debt.
Sometimes people add "Yours"to the "sincerely" to get "Sincerely yours." Often the writer who wants to be "Yours" is less sincere, and so drops the "Sincerely," and goes with "Yours truly." What does this mean? To me it means the writer is truly suspect like anyone who starts a sentence with "to tell the truth" or "this is the truth." The implication is that sometimes this person is not truthful and has to be careful to emphasize the truth when it is occasionally spoken or written.
The "Yours" part is difficult. Am I supposed to read "Yours" from the point of view of the writer or the reader? Is the IRS or the Columbia Record and Tape Club telling me that it belongs to me or that I belong to it? Maybe it's just my Visa that belongs to them.
To solve the complimentary close in my own letter writing, I use Irish.
Included in the dozen words I know but can't pronounce are Lea dea mhein, Mise Le Gra and Mise le meas. I have been quite safe using Irish in closing letters because very few people in the known world speak it, even though official Irish documents, bus schedules, street signs and Guinness advertisements are written in Irish. People sometimes even notice that my letter isn't signed "Sincerely" and ask what I'm trying to say. I assure them that my Irish would be uttered sincerely if I could pronounce it at all.
Now I've been caught short. Because I ended an e-mail message with Le dea mhein, I received a return e-mail message from Chris DeSantis, and the only thing I could make out in the message was that it ended with a question mark. I found that he not only knows Irish well enough to use it in e-mail but is literate in every major European language. I suppose that is how he became Senior Linguist in the Scripture and Temple Translation Division of the LDS Church Translation Department.
Now that I've been found out, I need a "Sincerely" substitute in a more obscure language than Irish or I will have to invent a word or phrase. I have ruled out most symbols like hearts and smiley faces, I want real words.
Please send suggestions for "Dear" and "Sincerely" substitutes. If I get more than two responses, I'll pass them along in a future column and refer the suggestions to the folks at the State Board of Education so that they can put them in the appropriate place in the state school curriculum. In the meantime, a very sincere Le dea mhein to my dear readers.