sir/madam

scubaangel

westv wrote: »

Perhaps when BexinLondon said generational maybe she meant that she thought she was older than everybody else, not younger.

Because she suggested that the meaning was more widely known previously...implying that it's the younger generation who are unlikely to have known it.

Savvy_Sue

I'm old enough to remember when business letters were addressed "For the attention of Fred Bloggs Esq.", the first line might have been "I refer to yours of the 15th inst." and even though you knew you were writing to Fred Bloggs they probably started "Sir" rather than "Dear Mr Bloggs", however things have changed since I learned to type 40 years ago.

My view would be that you are not usually wanting 'the company' to look at your application, but one individual within the company. So if you don't have a named person to write to, Dear Madam / Sir (or the other way round if you prefer) would be perfectly acceptable, as long as you finish Yours faithfully.

I suppose if you know you are writing to a very traditional company you might want to go for the more traditional form, but plain English is usually better than the archaic forms.

LittleVoice

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I'm old enough to remember when business letters were addressed "For the attention of Fred Bloggs Esq.", the first line might have been "I refer to yours of the 15th inst." and even though you knew you were writing to Fred Bloggs they probably started "Sir" rather than "Dear Mr Bloggs", however things have changed since I learned to type 40 years ago.

With an attention line it was still the company which was being addressed, not Mr Bloggs, so the salutation was (and is) Dear Sirs.

The Exception to the Dear Sirs would be if you were writing to a partnership (or other group) where all the partners were women: the salutation became Mesdames.

Savvy_Sue

LittleVoice wrote: »

With an attention line it was still the company which was being addressed, not Mr Bloggs, so the salutation was (and is) Dear Sirs.

The Exception to the Dear Sirs would be if you were writing to a partnership (or other group) where all the partners were women: the salutation became Mesdames.

Part of my point was that some of these letters started Sirs or Sir, not Dear Sir or Dear Sirs, IIRC. I can't help feeling that that would sound quite abrupt these days. Although clearly you can't write "Dear Mesdames", that just sounds ridiculous!

I should remember better, I used to do a lot of boring letter typing in those days ... carbon copies too!

Thinking back some more, the standard ending included "I have the honour to remain, sir, your most obedient servant", rather than Yours faithfully ...

Happy days!

SevenOfNine

BexInLondon wrote: »

That might be so but it's not generally known IME, and therefore could cause unintended offence. It's only a few more nano-seconds of typing to add in the madam and worth it to save offending rabid feminists like me Perhaps it's a generational thing, in that the generic meaning was more widely known previously?

It is generally known IMO. I haven't been putting Sir/Madam for years and years when sending a letter to a company, went out along with comma's after every line of an address, indenting new paragraphs, rigid rules on where to place the address etc. Etiquette changed.

BexInLondon

scubaangel wrote: »

Because she suggested that the meaning was more widely known previously...implying that it's the younger generation who are unlikely to have known it.

Yes that's what I meant! I should have been clearer that "sirs" when addressing an organisation as a n entity is the norm (though I wish it weren't!), but that it wouldn't, in my experience again, suffice in place of sir/madam when addressed to a single person. Which maybe is what everyone meant anyway, and I have just confused things

I do wish there was a non-gender specific way of saying "dear you lot", but there isn't yet!

westv

BexInLondon wrote: »

I do wish there was a non-gender specific way of saying "dear you lot", but there isn't yet!

IMO it doesn't matter. What's important is how an organisation treats all its staff and not thinking of ways of how to change the way it starts letters.