When I write an e-mail that is not a response, I begin my message with a salutation. Often that salutation is Hi plus the name of my addressee: Hi, Bob or Hi, Friends. But few writers today use the comma after Hi, even though that comma is grammatically correct.
Grammar books tell us that when we use someone's name or a group name in direct address, we should place commas around it:
Hi, Jim, how are you?
Good evening, Madam.
But, Bob, you never told me about your brother.
I am tempted to stop using the comma in salutations, just because so many people suspect that it is an error. (For the same reason, I have stopped using i.e. and replaced it with that is. So many people think erroneously that i.e. means for example.)
What do you think about commas in e-mail salutations?
1 comment:
(Sorry if this is a duplicate - Blogger is being weird about comments lately.)
Do people really suspect that the comma is an error?
I know that the comma is technically correct, but I skip it in a salutation for the following reasons:
- When there are only two words, it seems silly to separate them with a comma, unless it's necessary to do so to prevent confusion.
- If I am starting out with "Hi" instead of a more formal salutation, then I've already decided not to put on my Sunday-best formal writing habits.
- In school, we are taught that a proper salutation is "Dear Person's Name," where a comma truly would be incorrect. "Hi Person's Name" looks and feels parallel, even if we know that it isn't.
I don't often use salutations in email. When we write a letter on paper, the sender's name is on the envelope, but not on the page, so it's considerate to repeat the person's name on the page. However, when we send an email, our name, their name, and a date is already included in a header which displays along with the message body.
(By this logic, I shouldn't need to include a signature line at the bottom of my email, but I still do because it provides a personal buffer between my message and all the junk that Yahoo adds afterwards.)
If I think that the situation is formal enough to require a salutation anyway (similar to business letters in which you would include an "inside address" when writing on paper), I use "Dear Name."
If I don't know the name of the person I'm addressing (for example, when an email is getting directed to a department, rather than an individual), I just start off with "Hello" and a comma.
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