Grammar Nazi, part 2?

[sherron0]

As a side note, I might add that it's not unusual to get a call from my mother that begins with some strange or interesting question on a point of trivia she can't remember or the name of a song she can only remember one line of, etc.

So my mother calls tonight, and the conversation starts with:

Granny:  in a business letter, what punctuation comes after the 'Dear Ms. Smith'?
me:  Uh, colon?  (the hesitation here is not because I'm unsure of the answer, but because I know this must be a trick question)
G:  yes!  (yells to my dad) Sherron knew!
me:  you know people who don't?
G:  only my secretary and our media/PR person, and every one else in the office I asked. 

    [Okay, we can discount most of the guys because they're the non-verbal, engineering types.  But none of the people who've been sending out letters and proposals and writing ads and articles for publication and copy for the website !?!]

me:  *speechless* (still convinced there's got to be a punchline)

Unfortunately it wasn't.  She told me the story of how she found this out about the PR woman, how she actually had to ARGUE the point with her, force her to change it in a cover letter going out on a very big proposal.  She worries that she hasn't been proofreading them before now, because who would suspect that a 45 year old woman with a degree in media communication would not know basic grammar?    She's aware it's a problem with a lot of the young people just coming out of college tho.  Just last week she threw out a resume she'd received because the job applicant misspelled something.  She says in this world, where there are plenty of applicants for every job, there's no point in even considering people sloppy or lazy or ignorant enough to not make sure their resume is perfect.

She wonders if she's a dinosaur. 

I'm sure we are, she and I.

And I hate that.

I've been thinking about the_theorist 's comment about why would it matter if they get the point across.  And I acknowledge that one of the wonderful things about English is its flexibility, its easy acceptance of new words, etc.   But I think I have an answer to that, and I'm going to post it when I can clearly verbalize it

Comments

[wiliqueen.livejournal.com]

Ye gods. This woman has to have learned that somewhere along the way and just forgotten it, surely? But... I just... A business letter is still a business letter!

[sherron0.livejournal.com]

yep, uh huh, that's what me and the other old lady think.

[belovedbywar.livejournal.com]

Mmmh, as a foreign speaker, I have to admit that I didn't know that.
I even think it looks kind of strange, because in German you would put a comma instead of a colon and I somehow thought it would be the same in English...
So, thanks for this little anecdote! You made me aware of a mistake I never consciously knew I made!

[sherron0.livejournal.com]

Now, it IS a comma on personal letters, the colon is just for business letters, so don't let me confuse you!

[teresa-c.livejournal.com]

I struggle with this stuff, and I'm a college educated person over 40. I swear, I was taught that a business letter uses a colon, and the date is on the other side of the letter from the salutation. I have had to learn to put the date above the salutation, but it still feels weird. My boss was amazed that I didn't know this basic thing. Where does the date go? Hmph.

[sherron0.livejournal.com]

Your boss is being overly hard on you. What you are describing is exactly what people our age (pre-email) were taught is the most correct. Remember when paragraphs didn't have lines between them and we indented the first line? But it's one of three, and straight block seems to have taken over. All three are still correct. Here's what the OWL @ Purdue (an amazingly thorough and easy to use site on ALL types of writing things) has to say:

"When writing business letters, you must pay special attention to the format and font used. The most common layout of a business letter is known as block format. Using this format, the entire letter is left justified and single spaced except for a double space between paragraphs. Another widely utilized format is known as modified block format. In this type, the body of the letter is left justified and single-spaced. However, the date and closing are in alignment in the center of the page. The final, and least used, style is semi-block. It is much like the modified block style except that each paragraph is indented instead of left justified."