Every morning as I look through the pile of letters that the office boy places on my desk, I am impressed with the disregard which the writers have had of established conventions, of form and arrangement, of proper materials, of some of the most essential details of a correct letter. My correspondence is not conducted to any extent with illiterate or uneducated people, but in most instances with people of more than average training and experience—high school graduates, teachers, college officials, city business men, and men of affairs. And yet I find curious inconsistencies, sentences without verbs or subjects, and words of the most weird orthography. The letters are often without margins or paragraphs, and are written upon paper of no particular size or style; high school boys and even teachers sometimes using ragged sheets torn from a notebook or paper that in no way fits the envelope. Many of the letters are not dated, and others contain an insufficient address; should I desire to reply I am compelled to hunt through my files for an address. Women more often than men are guilty of this last fault, of omitting from the letter itself all indication of the specific address of the writer, and if they live in Chicago or some other large city the probability of such omission seems to become still greater. Usually, in such cases, if I will go into my outer office and stand on my head and paw about for a while in the waste paper basket where my clerk has thrown the envelopes containing the morning mail, I shall find an envelope on the front of which, or more often on the back, will be the address which should have been also in the letter itself. Ladies are most given to this error of writing their address on the back of the envelope only, never realizing that most business men never see the envelopes in which their letters come. Some men as well fall into it. Little discrimination is used as to complimentary beginnings and endings, "Very truly" and "Very sincerely" are used so indiscriminately that it is not possible by glancing at the letter to guess whether it has to do with strictly business matters or is a friendly letter of courtesy. Most of my correspondents as well as yours have been taught a good deal about these and other details of form, but they have not considered them seriously or made them a part of their own daily habits.
A newspaper always gives particular attention to the make-up of its front page, because that is what first catches the eye. First impressions are frequently the most lasting ones. A pretty girl is even more attractive if she is well dressed, and a good dinner is made an excellent one if the table is tastefully arranged and the courses are carefully served. So a letter is presented in the most effective way only if the materials upon which it is written are carefully chosen, and the form into which it is thrown is well considered.
I still recall with vividness the pleasure I felt a few years ago on receiving a little note from Mr. Irving Bacheller. The stationery was distinctive, and I have no doubt was a sort regularly used by him throughout many years. The penmanship was beautiful and looked almost as if each letter had been made separately as one would devise ornamental script. The margins were wide, almost mathematically even, and occupied quite half of the page. There were only two or three sentences in the entire letter, running down the middle of the page, but it gave me the lasting impression of careful arrangement, of fitness, and of perfect form. I have always wanted to write such a letter.
There are those who say that in a business letter at least it is only the facts presented which count. It amounts to little, they assert, whether you use green paper or yellow, whether "occurred" is spelled with one or two r's, whether the sentences contain verbs or limp along with participles, just so what is said can be understood. I do not believe this. I feel sure that even though the reader is not consciously affected by it, a slovenly, badly arranged, illiterate letter will fall short in its effect even upon the uncritical reader who is not trained consciously to recognize these weaknesses.
The materials used in writing a letter should, when possible, be in keeping with the character of the letter, and should be the best the writer can afford. A considerable number of people, especially women and young folks, are not likely to have any sort of business stationery; they do not do a great deal of business by correspondence. Such people need not be embarrassed if they conduct such business correspondence as they may have to do on the stationery which they ordinarily use for social purposes. The business or professional man will have paper and envelopes especially printed or engraved for his business correspondence. A brief clear statement of his name and business or the name of his firm, with a definite unmistakable address, is, barring the date line or the telephone number, all that need be given. I often spend time in trying to decipher from the mass of material which is crowded into a letterhead just where to address the man whose name is subscribed to the epistle, and often the best I can do is to hazard a guess. The less detail a business letterhead has printed on it and the more modest the display, the more effectively, I am convinced, it will serve its purpose. I struggled through a complicated elaborately designed letterhead a few days ago during my morning dictation. I spent several minutes in analyzing it, and yet I am not at all sure that I addressed my letter to the place where it should have gone.
The size of paper for business correspondence is usually eleven by eight and one-half inches, or it may be half this size or somewhat more than half. On the smaller sheets the letterhead may be printed either the short or the long way of the paper. It is quite safe if the color of the paper is white, though many people consciously choose rather striking colors, such as brown or yellow or blue, for distinctiveness and do so with good effect. When a given color or size of paper is once adopted, if it has any character, it should not be changed, for it will become in time a sort of trade-mark or sign of identification of the individual or of the firm. A successful business man whom I know has for years used a warm brown stationery printed in an ink of still darker brown, which gives an individual effect. I never see the color but it brings to mind his firm. It is to me one of his best advertising assets, and one which it would be a distinct mistake for him to change.
Envelopes should be of the same quality of paper as the letter sheets used, and should be of a size easily to admit the folded sheets which they are to contain. Nothing is more exasperating than to find envelopes too short or too narrow to contain the folded letter, and nothing makes a sloppier looking letter than one turned up at the ends or folded into some unconventional shape and squeezed into a tight little envelope.
A sheet eight and one-half by eleven inches should be folded three times—first from the bottom of the sheet up as the sheet lies flat, leaving the under edge a trifle longer than the upper so that the letter may be opened easily when it is in the hands of the reader. The second fold should be from the left to the right, turning over slightly less than one-third of the double folded sheet. The third fold should be from the right to the left in a manner similar to the way in which the second fold was made. When completely folded the letter will be about three by five and one-half inches. There is no other way correctly to fold such a sheet. The smaller sheet mentioned above should be folded twice—from the left to the right and from the right to the left, and the envelope used should be of the proper size to admit it easily. Sometimes a sheet eight and a half by seven and a quarter inches is used, but in such a case the envelopes should be seven and a half inches long. Otherwise the sheet will need to be folded up an inch or two from the bottom, a procedure which does not make a neat-looking letter. Such stationery as I have described with a business letterhead printed at the top is for business purposes only. It should not ordinarily be employed for social correspondence excepting, perhaps, between men who know each other well, and who are willing for the time being to ignore social conventions. The better' you know people the more liberties you can take in correspondence.
Stationery for friendly or social correspondence varies considerably in size. Women often use small folded sheets or correspondence cards about three and one-half by five and one-half inches. A standard size of paper is approximately seven and a quarter by ten and a half inches. This may be used as single sheets, in which case it is folded twice to go into the envelope—from the bottom up and from the top down, and the size of the envelope in this case is four by seven and a half inches; or it may be folded into a double sheet five and a quarter by seven and a quarter inches, in which case the envelope is three and three-fourths by five and three-fourths inches. The single sheet eight and one-half by five and one-half inches which comes made up into blocks is not a good form to use. It suggests crude inexperience. No extreme shades will do for this sort of letter-writing, if one wishes to be thought to have good taste. White is the best, though soft shades of gray are permissible.
"Wonder what his correspondence is like?" Mrs. Cheveley asks of Lord Goring in Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. And then as she looks at the letters, "Oh, what a very uninteresting correspondence! Who on earth writes to him on pink paper? How silly to write on pink paper! It looks like the beginning of a middle-class romance."
It looks, in fact, in these days like a sentimental child of fourteen. Many people never change the size or quality or shade of the paper on which they conduct their social correspondence. There is a certain individual personal touch in this adhering to one style that appeals to me. It shows a definiteness of taste, a certain stability of character that I admire. One man to whom I have written for many years never varies in his correspondence from the use of a light cadet gray. I recognize the familiar shade the moment the postman deposits his package of letters upon my desk, and the color itself has come to have for me the suggestion of a personality which I enjoy.
I do not know how much can really be told of a man's character through an examination of his penmanship; personally I can tell but little, but I feel sure that I could venture a pretty accurate guess concerning many of his personal traits by examining the general form of his letters. A letter without a margin looks about as attractive as a book or magazine would under the same circumstances, or aS a man without a collar, and if the margin is narrow or uneven the effect is not much better than it would be if there were none at all. There should always be a margin of three-quarters of an inch at least on the left side of the sheet.
Abbreviations are better omitted than otherwise even in business letters. They generally show laziness or haste, and both of these are bad qualities to reveal in any sort of correspondence. They are employed sparingly or not at all now by business firms who pay any careful attention to good form and good appearance. The indentations for paragraphs should be even. The first word of each paragraph should be indented about the same distance as the width of the margin left or even farther than this, but these indentations, whatever they are, should be in a straight line drawn the length of the page. The letter given below will illustrate what I have in mind with reference to abbreviations and the indenting of paragraphs.
September 13, 1920
Mr. Ford E. Belt
Lyndon, Illinois
Dear Mr. Belt:
I would like to have you plan to work with a branch of our office during the registration days. It will be necessary for you to be present at a conference on Friday afternoon, September 17, with Mr. A. J. Schuettner, and to register on Saturday afternoon, September 18.
I wish you would write to me at once as to whether or not you can be with us at that time. I must have a reply from you not later than Thursday, September 16.
Every one who writes should give at least a little attention to paragraphing. If the letter is written in longhand then the writer can manage this matter entirely as he wishes; if it is a dictated letter then the stenographer will need to exercise a little judgment in indicating by paragraphing when one topic ends and another one begins. A good many men who are careful as to their paragraph structure suggest to the stenographer as they are giving their dictation the beginnings and endings of paragraphs. The change of manner or the intonation of the voice is usually, however, sufficient indication to the stenographer. Some writers make almost every sentence of their letters into a separate paragraph, thinking that by this method they secure a greater emphasis. The real facts are that by so separating their ideas they weaken their style and fail to secure emphasis at all. An entire typewritten page, on the other hand, without breaks, is jumbled and confusing. Such a page is less clear and definite than a broken page. Paragraphs in the ordinary letter should probably not exceed one hundred or one hundred and fifty words; otherwise the appearance is heavy.
There are conventional ways of beginning and closing all sorts of letters, and these we cannot ordinarily with safety deviate from materially. We are coming gradually to be more direct, less formal and more natural and human, perhaps, in the use of these forms, than we once were. Written speech has always been a little more studied, a little less natural than spoken. It is likely to continue so, I imagine, though the difference is gradually being minimized. Our grandfathers began their letters "Respected Sir and Friend" capitalizing everything in sight, and ended them, even when they had to do with the most trivial subjects discussed with the most ordinary readers, "Your Humble and Obedient Servant." We don't do it that way now; we seldom go so far in these days as to sign ourselves "Respectfully yours," to any one.
Which leads me to say that a considerable number of people who have given indications in other directions at least of being intelligent sign their letters "Very respectively yours." How one could be "respectively" anyone's unless he were a firm or a board or a dual personality of some sort is too much for me to understand. It is not surprising, however, that high school boys and country storekeepers make the mistake when one runs onto it sometimes in the letters of college graduates.
The conventional beginnings and endings of letters, like all idioms, should seldom if ever be taken literally. When we say "How do you do?" to a friend as we pass him on the street we have no thought that he will halt and give us a detailed account of his mental and physical processes. It is in most cases purely a conventional form of recognition and greeting requiring no specific reply. So, too, when we begin a business letter with "Dear Sir" or a social one with "My dear Miss Jarvis," the recipients are not justified in feeling that either of these forms of address suggests any warmth of personal affection. One must begin some way, and these are simply the conventional forms which polite society approves, and which we are supposed to follow.
"How are ye this marnin', Mrs. McGinnis?" one Irishwoman greeted another over the back fence, "Not that I give a hang but just to start the talk." And in a similar manner, then, conventional beginnings and endings are simply to start and end the talk contained in letters.
A business letter addressed to a firm should begin "Gentlemen," or "Dear Sirs," or "My dear Sirs," the last being the most friendly. If addressing a business letter to an individual one may say "Dear Sir," "My dear Sir," or even "My dear Mr. Snyder." These forms are given in the order of their formality, the last one being the most friendly and the least formal, and a form which may very properly be used, which should be used, in fact, when men who are transacting business with each other are acquainted. If the two men are very close friends they may even in a business letter address each other by their first names, as "My dear George." These complimentary beginnings excepting when they include proper names should in most cases have the first and last words only capitalized. Such a complimentary beginning is usually preceded by the name and address of the one to whom the letter is written, as in the following letter.
January 19, 1921.
Dean Thomas A. Clark,
Dean of Men,
University of Illinois,
Urbana, Illinois.
My dear Dean Clark:
In your letter to me in reply to certain questions asked, you made mention of the fact that you have a Student Council which I understand from your letter handles cases involving misdemeanors of various kinds. Would you be kind enough to send me one of your pamphlets setting forth the selection, organization, and work of the committee mentioned. I will appreciate it very greatly.
No one who has any knowledge of conventional forms now ever begins a letter "Sir," or "Mr. Jones," or "Friend Smith," or "Dear Friend." There is no special reason for this excepting that people who establish conventional forms do not do it, and one is considered "green" or inexperienced if he thus begins a letter.
The complimentary close of a business letter should be, "Truly yours," or "Yours truly," or "Very truly yours," or "Yours very truly," only the first word in any case being capitalized. Occasionally still we see, when an inferior officer is addressing a superior one, when a young man is writing to an old one, or when for any reason there is desire or cause for acknowledging or suggesting respect, the complimentary closing of a letter "Respectfully yours," or "Very respectfully yours." This ending is in good form only when the business relations between the persons are such as to inspire the feelings indicated by the word "respectfully," and this rela tion does not commonly occur. It is never permissible to close with "Yours" or any single word. The letter below, written by a junior in college is in about as bad form as could be devised by an intelligent person who had tried to think out all possible violations of good form. The abbreviations are inconsistent, both complimentary beginning and ending are wrong, the punctuation is faulty, two sentences are without subjects, and the indentations are irregular and unbalanced, giving the letter a top-heavy, unstable effect. It is perfectly clear what the writer means, but the whole letter has a sloppy, illiterate appearance, and makes a bad effect. If given a chance to explain, the writer would undoubtedly say that he knew better, but that he had the mumps, was in a hurry to get his communication into the mail, and gave very little thought or attention excepting to the facts contained in it. The only answer to this is that we shall all have to do a great many things in a hurry during our lives, and we might just as well begin immediately to learn to do things both rapidly and accurately. Dean T. A. Clark
- University of Ill.
- Urbana, Ills
- Dean Clark,
- Urbana, Ills
Came home the week end of Jan. 8 and was unable to return to school because of the mumps. Do not know just when I can get back. This letter is so that my absence from classes may be taken care of thru your office.
Dear Miss Brown:
I have just read in the morning paper the notice of your recent good fortune in winning a scholarship at Bryn Mawr College. I congratulate you on the good fight you made, and assure you that I am more than pleased that you should have this opportunity to continue your education.
Urbana, Illinois
January 26, 1921
January 25, 1921
My dear Anton:
I want to thank you for sending me the book concerning which I wrote you. I really needed it very much, and there was apparently no other way for me to get it but by bothering you. I hope it will not be long until you can visit us again. We miss you very much.
Mr. Anton J. Janata
218 North Central Avenue
Chicago, Illinois
Any woman, married or single, should in some way indicate the fact of her sex, when writing to strangers, either by signing her name in full or giving at least one full given name, as "Edith L. White" or "Mary Jane Gray," and by prefixing "Miss" or "Mrs," in parentheses. It is usually confusing and often leads to embarrassing situations for a woman to sign merely her initials, as "M. L. Brown," in her business correspondence, or in correspondence with strangers. Women are not yet so regularly and familiarly addressed in business nor does their correspondence so unerringly show the feminine touch as to reveal their sex in correspondence without a little mechanical help.
What came very nearly being for me an epistolary tragedy not long ago arose from the fact that I had received a business communication from a lady who erroneously imagined that our acquaintance was sufficiently close for me to recognize her signature in any guise. She signed her name merely with her initials, and not having any very definite impression of her, I, thoughtless man, addressed my letter in reply to "Dear Mr. Brown," not recognizing my fair correspondent. My inexcusable blunder brought down upon me a shower of vigorous criticism and imprecations that would have done credit to any masculine correspondent with whom I have ever done business. The experience taught me a lesson which I am eager to pass on to all of those who may read this book.
The matter of directing the envelope may seem trivial, but the neatly addressed envelope may often very favorably dispose the reader toward the writer even before he has taken the letter into his hand. It is the little things of life which often make a more lasting and definite impression upon us than do the larger and apparently more vital things. The address on an envelope should always occupy a little more than the lower half of the available space, and should be placed toward the right end of that space. It will usually consist of but three or four lines, and these may be correctly arranged in one of two ways. The first of these is called the block method of arrangement. In this arrangement the lines are placed one under the other without indentation, and usually all punctuation is omitted, although regular punctuation may be used if it is desired. An illustration follows:
806 West Michigan Avenue
Urbana, Illinois
The second method is the more commonly employed. In this the first line of the address is placed very near the middle of the space indicated and the succeeding lines are evenly indented toward the right. The lines should not be indented so far as to give an unsupported or top-heavy effect to the address. This address may or may not be punctuated, as the writer prefers.
927 Minerva Street,
Chicago, Illinois.
One should always be careful with his signature. I say this with the more feeling knowing that my own must be a great trial to many people to whom I write and who have never before heard of me. Perhaps the military method of signing the letter over the typewritten name might be a good system to employ in all business letters. It is, in fact, being employed very much more generally in recent years than it was before the war, and it is a practice which may well be encouraged. In social letters, however, written in longhand, there is no such opportunity and here special care should be observed. Even in letters between friends it is not a bad practice to sign one's full name and to do it carefully. At Christmas time I spend not a few moments in racking my brain to determine who "E. E. F." is or in deciding whether "Mac" is McEldowney, or McMasters, or McGinnis. Sometimes even the envelope when it bears a decipherable postmark, which is seldom, does not help me out a great deal, for one's young friends move without announcement from New York to Seattle, or from St. Louis to Cheyenne. Some men take pride in the cultivation of a signature that can neither be imitated nor deciphered. This fact may protect them from forgery, but it often occasions those to whom they write considerable annoyance, and is no sign either of erudition or of solid business standing. No one can afford so to sign his name unless it is printed or engraved at the top of the sheet upon which he is writing.
I have said nothing about punctuation, and it is, perhaps, unnecessary to say much. The tendency these days is toward simplicity in punctuation and in capitalization. This does not mean, however, that one can wander on interminably without any punctuation marks, or that proper nouns may not still claim the right te be dignified with a capital letter. In short sentences, such as are commonly met with in ordinary correspondence, very little punctuation is needed. In longer sentences, however, or in the reproduction of conversation, considerable punctuation is required for the sake of accuracy and clearness. If one knows anything about the grammatical construction of sentences, this punctuation is not difficult to learn, and if one does not it is practically hopeless to give directions, for in such a case the writer will continue to use punctuation marks as a college student goes to church—when he feels like it.
The various details with reference to materials and mechanical form to which I have called attention in this chapter go far to the making of a good-looking letter. Their use gives a pleasing appearance and an impression that the writer of the letter is familiar with the ways of the world and that he is a person of experience and good taste. They may be easily learned if one is willing to give a little attention to them, It is surprising how soon they may become habitual, and after they are habitual they seemed a real part of oneself.