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Snuppelina Posted 12 years ago
Grammar

Salutation in emails.

Hi there,

Would it be a bad mistake to write something like this:

Dear Prof. XXX,

Hello, bla-bla...

I understand that "hello" is perhaps not needed here, or that I should use either one, but still...is it possible?
  

Top answer

snuppelina I understand that "hello" is perhaps not needed here, Right. is it possible? You may do as you wish, but if I were writing to a professor, I would certainly avoid that informal familiarity.

  • snuppelina I understand that "hello" is perhaps not needed here, Right.
  • is it possible?
  • You may do as you wish, but if I were writing to a professor, I would certainly avoid that informal familiarity.
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4 Answers
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snuppelinaI understand that "hello" is perhaps not needed here,
Right.
snuppelinabut still...is it possible?
You may do as you wish, but if I were writing to a professor, I would certainly avoid that informal familiarity.
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Thank you! You see, I did not think it was considered informal. In fact, I very often wrote "Hello" after Dear ...(not necessarily to a professor, but just to a close friend) to sound polite. I see now that it had an opposite effect.
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For me, 'dear' has always meant 'hello'.
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Thank you!

I think it got stuck in my head since the time I had an American penpal. She used to write something like Dear ***, Hi, how are you?
Now I see that it's not correct.
Tried to google a bit:
http://www.masondixonknitting.com/mdk-pa

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