Dear esafak,

It is not entirely true that the usage has changed; I usually start my emails with this salutation, both to recipients close to me and those whom I do not know well. I address mailing lists with a simple "Dear all".

Nonetheless, this is the first time I have done so in a Hacker News post, and it shall probably be the last too.

Best wishes,

seabass

Dear Seabass,

One other reason for using the 'Dear [name]' salutation is that you can demonstrate that you can spell someone's name correctly. It takes time and effort to get this detail right and there can be consequences when getting it wrong. If I write to Stephen with 'Dear Steven' then nothing might be said, but you know it will be noted, albeit momentarily. There is also a level of familiarity to get right. Stephen might be 'Steve' in everyday conversation with just his mother using 'STEPHEN' when he is in trouble.

My mother could not spell so I have a common name with an uncommon spelling. I am not too fussed about that, however, it acts like a check word of sorts. If someone goes to the effort of spelling my name correctly then they have passed the test and I know, from the first line, that I need to take them a bit more seriously than those that are unable to pass the test.

The only times I have tried to correct anyone is when it is to do with bureaucracy as that is needed if you want things like your banking to work. I certainly would not try and correct anyone else as I would not want anyone to feel bad for getting this minor detail wrong.

As well as the salutation there is the way we close a message. As well as the standard 'Yours sincerely/Yours faithfully/Best wishes/Kind regards' there are interesting variants that people use.

The former British Prime Minister John Major used 'Yours ever', which I have not seen anyone else use.

Just for the lols, I might start my HN messages with 'To whom it may concern'. Not really. But I am glad that the people that don't use salutations have won. In the early days of email and the web, a considerable amount of bytes were wasted with salutations and, more notably, signatures.

Until next time,

Theodores

For an actual letter I think I would use Dear, not an email.

But it's so very seldom that I write a physical letter these days.