RE: Salutation Question: Hi Fred, or Hi, Fred ?

["Pinkham, Jim" <Jim -dot- Pinkham -at- voith -dot- com>]

I'm siding with Fred on this one. "Hi" is not parallel to the three
modifiers. "Hi" is an interjection. See:
http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/interjections.htm.

Jim 

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jim -dot- pinkham=voith -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Greg Holmes
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 4:32 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: RE: Salutation Question: Hi Fred, or Hi, Fred ?

Hi Fred,

Fred Ridder wrote:

>The "Hi" and "Hello" salutations are *not* parallel to the "Dear" 
>constructions.

But in the usage that we are talking about, they are
*precisely* parallel to the "Dear" constructions.  Because they *are* in
fact being used as the salutation :)

  Dear Joe,

  Esteemed colleague,

  Most excellent Theophilus,

  Hi Bob,


>"Hi" and "Hello" are each a short message directly addressed to 
>someone, which is why they are subject to the "direct address" 
>punctuation rule.

They're just an informal word substituted for "dear".

As for *why* folks (including me) are writing like that ...
I think it's from all that "authenticity" that actually started in the
60s. We may be a hundred times as mendacious about everything that
actually matters (wedding vows, etc.) but we'll be darned if we're going
to pretend that our colleagues are "dear" to us ;)

I'm as guilty as anybody else ... I always felt kind of silly writing
"dear" in paper letters to people who weren't dear to me.  But at least
I had the weight of tradition behind me.  In email, we have no such
weight of tradition, so off goes the "dear".


Yours sincerely,

Greg Holmes
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