If the recipient is an entity, the simplest salutation would be Dear Sirs, although it’s commonplace to use the name of the chief executive officer. If the recipient is a person, the salutation should refer to that person by name. I expect that this post will allow me to generate the final such rider.Ĭhapter 19 (Letter Agreements) in the third edition contains the following:
Besides checking the copy editor’s fixes and doing my own hunting for glitches, I’ve also been adding a few riders relating to stuff I’ve blogged about over the past couple of months.
I’m currently reviewing the first set of page proofs of the fourth edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting. To whom it may concern suggests that you either don’t know to whom you’re sending the letter or don’t care. Dear Sirs and Madams (or Mesdames) and Ladies and Gentlemen exhibit the first two of those problems. If the recipient is an entity, dispense with a salutation-it would be pointless to use a salutation such as Dear Acme Corporation, as we would know from the recipient address stated above the salutation that the recipient is Acme Corporation.Ī traditional choice for a salutation to an entity would be Dear Sirs, but it suggests you’re writing to a group of individuals, it’s old-fashioned, and it’s gender-specific (see 17.10). A salutation is standard in correspondence with an individual, and it would allow you to reflect the nature of the relationship: in a letter to Jane Doe, the salutation would presumably refer to Jane or Ms. If the recipient is an individual, use as a salutation Dear and the individual’s name. Here’s the current version of what I plan on putting in MSCD4:
I now happily bow to the logic of those who said I should get rid of the salutation. (I inserted the first update below, in the original post.) In the past 24 hours I’ve considered this issue for the first time, proposed something new, then had readers drag me in another direction.
Yikes! This is my second update to this post.
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