It Is a 5 Post Saga About Greeting in English (part III)

Please answer the following questions:
1.I write business letters ….
a. very often.
b. often.
c. rarely.
2. I devote….of my workday to correspondent.
a. 70%
b. 50%
c. 5%
3. Please choose the appropriate form of salutation (the line salutation is marked by red arrow).








Your result.
If you chose mostly a, this post was definitely written for you. This post covers not only fundamental issues, but also pitfalls of writing a formal letter and the salutation in particular.
If you selected c, we recommend you reading this post for basic understanding of business correspondence rules.

In our previous lessons we showed you how to choose a suitable formal or informal form of greeting. A
combined letter can either create a good impression on its recipients or spoil the business relationships with the writer's organization. It is time to give you some tips on ways of greeting in business letters.

Tips

1. The first letter of the first word of the salutation is capitalized. So it could be Dear or To
   whom, not dear or to
   whom.
2. The most frequently asked question is what salutation to use when addressing different people (sex, age, occupation, etc.). There are no universally accepted forms to use. Traditionally, you should address

-a girl as Miss or Ms and respect the individual's preference if you know it. For girls younger than 13, Miss or Ms may be omitted.

-a boy as Mr for boys younger than 13, omit the title. (Master is now rarely used except with the names of very young boys)

-a married woman as Mrs.
-an unmarried woman as Miss.
-a woman whose marital status you don't know; also used to address an unmarried woman as Ms.
-if you know the person's name:
Dear Ms / Miss / Mrs / Mr / Dr + surname or Dear Mr Miller.
You can also write the person's full name. In this case, leave out the title (Mr/Mrs). This way of writing the salutation is very handy if you don't know the gender of the person.
Dear Chris Miller.
-several persons as Dear Mr Anderson, Mrs Brodsky, Ms Carmino, Mr Dellums, and Miss Eustace or Dear Friends (Colleagues, Members, or some other suitable collective terms).
-a married couple (if a wife uses maiden name) as Dear Mr (husband's surname) and Ms (wife's maiden name).
-a married couple (married couple-husband has special title) as Dear Dr and Mrs ... (husband's surname).
-a married couple (both have special titles) as Dear Drs (husband's surname) or Dear Major and Professor (husband's surname). -organization of women:
If there are "only" women, so Mesdames or Ladies.
If there are two or more women, so Dear Mrs Allen, Ms Ott, and Miss Day, Dear Mrs Jordan and Mrs Kent, Dear Mesdames Jordan and Kent (more formal), Dear Ms Scott and Ms Gomez.
Dear Mses (or Mss) Scott and Gomez (more formal) or Dear Miss Winger and Miss Rossi.
Dear Misses Winger and Rossi (more formal).
-organization of men:
if there are "only" men in the organization as Gentlemen.
two or more men as Dear Mr Gelb and Mr Harris.
Sirs (more formal).
-organization of men & women as Ladies and Gentlemen or Gentlemen and Ladies.
-name & Gender unknown as Dear Sir or Madam, Dear Madam or Sir or To Whom It May Concern. -name Known, Gender unknown as Dear Marion Parker, Dear R. V. Moore.

-name unknown, gender known as Dear Madam or Dear Sir.
-name and gender known as Dear Mr Smith, Dear Mrs Gray, Dear Ms Simpson, Dear Miss Wells.
Find detailed list of salutations here (Webster's guide to business correspondence).

3. Did you pick the right form of addressing, but your letter still creates a wrong impression on a reader? The name of the game is…punctuation! Did you know that the British and Americans use different system of punctuation? Look at the list below.

British English

Dear Ms Wexley

Dear Jane Wexley

Dear Jane

American English

Dear Mr.Wexley:

Dear Jane Wexley:

Dear Jane:

LISTENING SECTION

Good chance to practise your listening skill along with your writing. Watch a short video on the discussed topic.
How to Address a Letter -- powered by eHow.com

Dear Reader
We hope our tips help you in discovering ways of greeting in English.

It Is a 5 Post Saga About Greeting in English (part II)

READING SECTION

Nowadays, every formal and informal group of people coin their own way of salutation. The basic word "Hello" took different forms. You can see it on your own by looking at the list below.

How to use these phrases? Let's imagine two situations. In one of them you don't have time to stop and have a chat. In another situation, you can afford to spend few minutes for a conversation.

Tips

1.Slow down to greet someone you know.
2.Say an appropriate form of hello (look at the list above).

3. Don't forget to smile.

4. Sometimes you pass the same person a second time on the same day. You can say "hello again" or just smile.

5. So-called questions "How are you?" or "What's up?" don't necessary need a respond. They just mean "Hello". If you want to response, say "Very well, thank you. And you?" (formal) or "Fine / Great" (informal).

Tips
1.Stand near a person and say hello.
You can answer:
-Nice to see you.
-Long time no see (I haven't seen you in a while)
-What have you been up to?
-How are things?
-It's been a while (It's been a while since I've seen you)
-What's new?
-Not much (answer to What's new?)
2. Use an appropriate body language:
-Hug (between friends);
-Hand shake or a high-five.
3. Express happiness to see a person.
4. Ask a question or begin a conversation.

LISTENING SECTION

More? Do you remember that we promised to recommend different sources of information on a topic to you? Visit the site of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the largest broadcasting organization in the world, and listen to audio records on greeting. http://tinyurl.com/ca3aey

Language Bar Muzzles Minister

New Delhi, Aug. 9: On Tuesday, minister M.K. Alagiri will have to forgo his big moment — the chance to reply to one of the most awaited Lok Sabha debates — because he speaks neither English nor Hindi. The discussion is to be on the Bhopal gas tragedy and, as chemicals and fertilisers minister, M. Karunanidhi's son should have had the last word by right. But a combination of constitutional provisions and parliamentary convention stands in the way of the DMK minister from Tamil Nadu. His deputy Srikanta Jena will fill in, a parliamentary affairs ministry source said. With Alagiri expected to be in the House, it will be the first time a deputy minister responds to a Parliament debate in his boss's presence. Alagiri's presence in the House can lead to more embarrassment for the government if the Opposition decides to be mean and insists that he and not Jena take the microphone. Alagiri had refused when he was asked if he would speak, saying he was fluent only in his mother tongue, Tamil. The government's floor managers had thought of asking environment minister Jairam Ramesh to stand in, but eventually decided on Jena. The situation is ironical because the DMK's rise in Tamil Nadu politics owed much to its anti-Hindi movements before and after Independence. Alagiri's plight had prompted the DMK to press the Centre to tweak the rules. Article 120 of the Constitution says parliamentary business should be transacted in English or Hindi but empowers the Chair to allow a member who "cannot adequately express himself in Hindi or in English to address the House in his mother tongue". But officials said that traditionally, ministers were not offered the choice. "The article is discriminatory. We'll insist on amending it because ministers who do not speak English or Hindi are disadvantaged by it. They don't get a chance to make an impact in the House," said Alagiri's sister and DMK Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi. Sources said the DMK was banking on Trinamul Congress support for its demand for amending Article 120. The "English-Hindi bias" has been a thorny issue in Parliament. For instance, business rules say that question hour will be conducted in English and Hindi but add a proviso that some see as "unfair". If an MP asks a question in English because he doesn't know Hindi, the minister can still reply in Hindi — whether or not the questioner understands the language. In 1978, a member, A. Bala Pajanor, had objected to junior minister Larang Sai replying in Hindi to a question he had asked in English, but was overruled by the Chair. The Chair had also clarified that MPs could not ask questions in a third language because it would be impractical to try to translate from so many languages. Parliament's computerised interpreter system is designed to translate proceedings simultaneously from English to Hindi and vice versa, and from other languages such as Assamese, Kannada or Tamil into Hindi and English. But the facility doesn't always work smoothly in these languages. Alagiri, who had played truant from the House till the Speaker spoke to him, answered his first question as minister last week in the Lok Sabha, during question hour. "Question number 161. A statement A to E is laid on the table of the House," is all he said, in English. Jena was left to field the supplementaries.

(source: The Telegraph: Author: Radhika Ramaseshan)

It Is a 5 Post Saga About Greeting in English

READING SECTION

Did you know that Maori, indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand, greet each other by rubbing or touching of noses? It is called "Hongi". The literal meaning of "Hongi" is "sharing of breath". Are you surprised or shocked? Don't be. It's something akin to the Western custom of kissing someone on the cheeks by the way of greeting. But along with non verbal signals, people from the West tend to use verbal language; they say "Hi", "How are you?" or "Good day, Mr." (of course, titles are different for men and women; and honorifics are based on status of a person in society or age).

Also the majority of our feelings and intentions are sent through non verbal communication (the spoken language makes up less than 35% of communication).We will discover the theme "non verbal greetings", e.g. wave, hand shake, eye communication in our next post.
Our today's topic of the blog is verbal greeting.
Let's check synonyms of the word "greeting"

English Collins Dictionary
noun greeting
1.address, hail, reception, salutation, salute, welcome
2.best wishes, compliments, devoirs, good wishes, regards, respects, salutations
(source: English Collins Dictionary-English Definition & Thesaurus )

Thesaurus noun greeting
Salutation, welcome, welcoming, reception, acknowledgment, address(source: Thesaurus )

Brief glance at different ways of greetings

Ave Atque Vale

The Romans used ave and avete by themselves for saying hello or goodbye. Later ave was a morning greeting, and vale was used when leaving someone in the evening. In classical Latin, ave
atque vale came to be a formulaic farewell to the dead (produced in accordance with a slavishly followed rule or style; predictable, e.g. much romantic fiction is stylized, formulaic, and unrealistic)

Chaire and chairete

Like ave were the classical Greek chaire and chairete, which were used both on meeting and on leaving a person. Their root meaning was "Rejoice! Be happy" (Feel or show great joy or delight, e. g. he rejoiced when he saw his friend alive or he rejoiced in her spontaneity and directness)

Hello

Hello appears to have arisen in its first instance as an imitation by hunters of a hunting dog's yowl. It is marked "echolic" in many dictionaries, which then add its early forms like halloo from medieval French halloer, to pursue game with shouts and cries. Compare, too, the Old High German verb halôn, "to hail a ferryman by shouting halloo across the water." Halloo, hullo, hello are a few of many variants that include the reduplicated hullabaloo (source: billcasselman.com)

LISTENING SECTION

Do you want more information? We think that it is time to master your listening skill.

The first part of the saga "About Greeting" is finished. Now…practise your writing:)

An English professor gave his students the phrase: "A woman without...

An English professor gave his students the phrase: "A woman without her man is nothing." and asked them to punctuate it correctly.
All the males in the class wrote: "A woman, without her man, is nothing."
All the females proposed another option: "A woman: without her, man is nothing."

INTRODUCTION

Very Brief History of Functional English

Or Manual How to Use a Material on a Page of This Blog Effectively

“It is essential to think of learners becoming functional in their English rather than thinking there is a vital body of knowledge known as functional English.”