. Hello lapislazuli, and welcome to English Forums. 1. Do I use a dot after Mr in the salutation?-- No dot is becoming the accepted form, but both are OK. 2. Do I use a comma or a colon or nothing at all after the salutation? -- Most use a colon

Hello, My questions concern writing official/business letters. 1. Do I use a dot after Mr in the salutation? 2. Do I use a comma or a colon or nothing at all after the salutation? 3. Do I start my first sentence with a capital letter? My head of

I say use the comma. I do ... just put it in a sentence. "Dear" acts as an adjective ... "Hello" is like a sentence, a greeting to the person you are writing to, and in English, we put a comma to denote the person being spoken

I specifically remember this, too. i was told by a former boss it was "Ungrammatical" -- why did I listen to that idiot? I finally did a little research and found the comma is indeed grammatical.

I don't think you are remembering anything incorrectly, but I do think that these days, that comma ("Hello Dolly") is very rarely used. I certainly don't.

I'm sorry, but that was totally not what I was looking for... The reference to the used comma is the one that is BETWEEN Hello and Dolly: Hello, Dolly. As far as other punctuation, that is not my concern but thanks for the response anyway.

Hi Anon Now it seems as if everyone is writing: Hello Dolly or Hi John - with no comma. In modern English, the stress is on less punctuation. For example, it was formerly Mr. (in BrE), but nowadays, it is Mr (without period). However, in

I specifically remember learning this punctuation in grade school and high school: Hello, Dolly. (Hi, John.) I remember learning to put the comma after a casual opening, but if it was "Dear" or "To", etc., you would not put the comma there

Open punctuation has no punctuation after the salutation or complimentary closing, no commas in the addressee's address and no periods after abbreviations: The President of the United States Washington DC Dear Mr Bush Sincerely yours Closed

corrections in bold and other areas you need to look at are highlighted for you. Watch out for the length of your sentences. You tend to run on and try to connect too many ideas and are not using enough commas. Dear Sir or Madam (US uses colon,