Ladies and Gentlemen? Dear Sir or Madam? You need to know how correspondence etiquette is changing

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Over the past months I’ve been receiving letters from you asking about the right forms of address in business letters and emails. Many of you worry that you might get something wrong, because you have noticed that in correspondence from the USA and UK, forms of address are not the same as the ones you learned at secretarial college. First of all, good for you for noticing these changes, and thank you for asking me about them. I have been following them myself, too and wondering when to write about them. So now’s the time.

There are six new forms of address and three outdated ones

I have noticed six new additions, and three salutations are going out of date. The new additions include just writing “Hello” or “Greetings” and addressing an individual or a group of people by their function (Dear HR Manager / Dear Board Members). Use the table below to decide which salutation you need on your letter or email if you want to be up to date.

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Traditional and new salutations for letters and emails