Punctuation question

[Pinkham, Jim]

Back in the (Flint)Stone Age when I was in school learning these things,
the rule was a comma was part of the greeting for informal letters and
the colon was more appropriate for business letters, particularly if
addressed to a recipient one did not know or know well (i.e., formal
letters). 

This piqued my curiosity enough to do the following search:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=salutation+comma+colon. Not
surprisingly, based on our own dialogue here, some of the results bear
me out; others do not. So it would seem to come down, as it so ofen
does, to this: If you have a stylebook or house style, follow it. If
not, choose an approach and be consistent.

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jim.pinkham=voith.com at lists.techwr-l.com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jim.pinkham=voith.com at lists.techwr-l.com] On
Behalf Of John Hedtke
Sent: Friday, November 02, 2007 7:11 AM
To: Ron Wilbanks; Techwr-l
Subject: Re: Punctuation question

FWIW, I've always used a colon, regardless of content.

"Dear Ron:"

rather than

"Dear Ron,"

I know I picked this up at a very young age, but where or if it's really
correct, I couldn't say.

Yours truly,

John Hedtke
Author/Consultant/Contract Writer
www.hedtke.com <-- website
541-685-5000 (office landline)
541-554-2189 (cell)
john at hedtke.com (primary email)
johnhedtke at aol.com (secondary email)



At 01:39 AM 11/2/2007, Ron Wilbanks wrote:
>Over the years, I have always used a colon on the open salutation of 
>any letter, both personal and formal.  Lately, I have been receiving 
>business letters that use a comma, rather than a colon addressed to my 
>boss.  Likewise, I also see the use of the comma becoming far more 
>widespread than the colon in this area.
>
>Has the rules of writing changed, and now favor the comma for a 
>salutation, or is the colon still the rule?  My boss, who is 54 
>years-old, uses the comma all the time, as does his 19 year-old
daughter.

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