Dec
17
Written by:
lucy@english-pro
12/17/2009 2:57 PM
I've just had a very peculiar response to an English proofread I completed for a German speaker.
She had written a letter thus:
Dear James,
it was lovely to see you at the weekend....
Naturally I corrected the 'it' to read 'It'; she responded ardently stating that this should not be capitalized; I checked around to confirm I was correct, looking at business letter templates and so forth and found no version that wasn't capitalized.
But in fact grammatically speaking it's right, isn't it? There is no other time we'd capitalize after a comma, so why do we in a letter?
What do you think? Has anyone ever seen the rule that states the beginning of a letter should be capitalized?
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6 comment(s) so far...
Re: To capitalize or not?
Very nice case. It took me actually 2 years after moving to the UK to realise that in this case it should be capitalised. Why 2 years? Because I would never ever consider that it could be It. I took it for granted that after comma it is it not It.
Thanks, Gosia
By Gosia Krumplewska on
12/17/2009 4:28 PM
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Re: To capitalize or not?
Thanks Gosia.
It's an interesting point and I wonder when the comman appeared at the end of the salutation; by rights it should be a fullstop, I guess.
Anyway, not one to rock the boat, it just intrigued me; as did her emphatic belief that I was wrong!
By Ghostwriter on
12/17/2009 8:00 PM
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Re: To capitalize or not?
Of course it should be capitalized! But if it's a business letter, there should be a colon - not a comma - after the salutation.
By Chaya on
1/12/2010 1:13 PM
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Re: To capitalize or not?
In my mother's great wisdom, I was sent to Secretarial College - this, to her mind, being the peak of aspiration for a girl. Consequently, I can confirm that capitalising the first letter of the content of a letter is correct, despite its following a comma.
My mother's wisdom wasn't so bad either. It led to my becoming PA to Paul Gallico, author of Snow Goose, Ludmilla and The Poseidon Adventure. And it made me a great believer in the concept that nothing is wasted. Don't pick me up for beginning a sentence with And, please Lucy :(
Your friend, Mel
By Mel Menzies on
1/20/2010 9:20 PM
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Re: To capitalize or not?
I have to say, Chaya, I have never, in all my years of dealing with business (I am still working to this day for a publishing company) come across a colon after the salutation.
By Mel Menzies on
1/20/2010 9:22 PM
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Re: To capitalize or not?
Hi Mel
Do you know what, when I was a girl I thought going to secretarial college was the peak as well!
I was absolutely with you on the colon thing, Mel, until this discussion came about. Would you believe it, it really is the expected punctuation in a US formal business letter; a comma is only used with the formal barriers are lowered. It struck me as odd initially, but there we have it. Two nations again divided by a common language!
And of course I shan't pick you up on your starting a sentence with 'and'.
By Lucy on
1/26/2010 10:14 AM
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