The Lane Brothers’ Point-Counterpoint Guide to Etiquette for Young Men
Whether, like the poet Virgil (Solozzo), you are un’ uomo di biziniss, or whether you’re just some sofa spud writing to a “biziniss,” you should know how to write the excellent kind of letter. In this essay, I will explain how it is done, while all you have to do is one simple thing: watch and learn. All right, that’s two simple things, but here is where you get your very first chance to “multitask” That is peachy.
When you undertake to write a business letter, you must open with the proper greeting or “salivation,” from the Latin greeting, “Salve,” which originated as a request for unguent. If you know the name of the person you are writing to, then, by all means, employ the name, preceded by the word ‘dear’ and followed by a colon, as in:
Dear Stinky:
Blah blah blah blah blah.
If you are writing to a heartless, soulless anonymous conglomerate that knows you not and cares even less, then you must try a different arrive. There was a time when you would be counseled to start your letter with “Dear Sir:” under the assumption that the captain of industry’s lackey you were addressing was a man. We cannot make that assumption nowadays. You might be writing to a woman. For all you know, you might be
writing to a grizzly bear, but, so far, society does not require such a leap of faith. Unruffled, to cover yourself in the possible event of a person from either gender seeing your letter, you are expected to begin it with:
Dear Sir or Madam:
Even as a guy, I find this highly offensive and discriminatory. What you are saying, when you really take a good scrutinize at it is, “Dear fellow who was awarded a knighthood or supervisor in a brothel.” I ask you, is that fair? Is that polite? Is that even businesslike? I certainly do not think so. I’m surprised the women’s libbers haven’t jumped on this one with the hell that hath no fury. All right, enough editorializing. Suffice it to say that you, the caring, sensitive and politically correct business correspondent, should, at the very least, try to tone down the insult to the woman. I would suggest something like:
Dear Sir or Lady of Questionable Virtue:
If you imagine it is too much trouble to use a longer term than “Madam,” then you could, in the name of fairness, balance the scales a little bit the other way. Perhaps something like:
Dear Pimp or Madam:
That will certainly stave off the writer’s cramp, but I am not so sure you will be getting your letter off to the best open.
Now we secure to the text or “torso” of the letter. This is where you say what is on your mind. Well, maybe not exactly what is on your mind, as in:
Dear Sir or Aging Procuress :
I could certain use a frosty beer. Where did I put the remote?
You should confine your observations to the things that are germane to the recipient’s business and your problem therewith. Oh, by the procedure, if you are sending anything along with the letter you should say so right at the outset. For some reason or another, you are supposed to imagine your letter is a big fuzzy warm blanket. Here is what I mean:
Enclosed under cover of this letter, please find a whacked off pinky.
Now you may think you are being more than a little insulting to the reader’s deductive powers by specifically asking him to “please rep” your enclosure, but, take my word for it: people who routinely read business letters eat that sort of thing up.
If you have a problem with a product or service the recipient was supposed to have provided, you should say what the problem is, but find a way to do so without profanity or death threats. Otherwise, yours may no longer qualify as a business letter and, as a consequence, will be deemed ineligible for the Annual Business Letter Sweepstakes.
A truly polished business letter will enact the text part by finding something to thank the reader for, no matter how perturbed you might be at his business. This is to demonstrate your reasonableness and desire to keep him (or the whore) off balance.
Finally, when you have said your say and ventilated your spleen, you end the letter with a “valediction,” which is commonly used in correspondence in lieu of having to “valedite” the guy’s parking. Most of these are meant to declare your verisimilitude or humiliation, such as:
Sincerely,
Yours truly,
I kid you not,
Your humble and obliging servant,
Your unworthy and despicable sycophant.
You score the idea. But you need not feel constrained by the narrow list of choices I have provided you, even if I do know wherefrom I speak. Any valediction that conveys a warm and good feeling will suffice to close out your letter in a sufficiently businesslike fashion.
Here, he said, as a study of patient tolerance played upon his handsome features, let me present you how it is done, from soup to balls:
Dear Sir or Damsel with a Past:
Please find under cover of this letter a map of Belize.
I am most dissatisfied with your suppositories. I find that, for all the good they have done me, I may as well have stuck them in a place that gets very limited sunlight. I wish my money to be cheerfully refunded, just as it says on the cereal box.
Thank you for eventually passing away.
Oodles and oodles of love,
Your Name Here
Counterpoint Essay #1
The Business Letter
Brace yourself, I am going to begin by admitting that my brother is right about something. You should learn how to write a respectable business letter. What he so egregiously omitted is: so should he.
To begin with, ask yourself, what has this anonymous Order of the Bather (Like, Burl Ives? If that fat old hippie ever took a bath in his life, I’ll eat my hat, band and all.) or ex- hooker ever done for you that you should address either of them as “dear? ” El zippo, that’s what! Instead of the namby-pamby arrive my brother would have you use, I think you should set the tone by telling it like it is, right up front. Here’s how you really want to start a business letter:
Hey, you:
What have you done for me lately?
Now that you have the niceties out of the arrangement, you can go on to the serious stuff. I am talking here, as serious as a mutter wreck, and that is plenty, despite the unusual TV pilot: World’s Wackiest Train Wrecks. It was cancelled so quickly, if you blinked, you missed part of an episode. Yet Moby Dick, the Puppet Show keeps playing to packed houses. I just don’t understand.
One of the very few other things I persistently fail to understand is that, while we can remember every stitch of the multiplication table (At least through the terrible twos, right? ), we can never keep track of our umbrellas. The other day, I left my most expensive umbrella in a taxi. I managed cover the deed up by telling my wife I was at an orgy, but I am not altogether sure I allayed her suspicions. It fair goes to point to you, one should never get too attached. To an umbrella, that is.
To be sure, there are a number of things in this short, transitory life to which you should not get attached. Among them are:
1) flypaper
2) downed telephone wires
3) the halls of poison ivy
4) handcuffs
5) hand grenades
6) Siamese twins (Remember, two’s company, three’s a crowd.)
You should carry this list with you at all times and consult it frequently. It can score you out of a crunch or a jam, but not both together, which is just as well. When you come right down to it, how much call is there for crunchy jam these days? Not much, I’d say, and I am considered quite the grommet when it comes to what they call your oat cuisine (which, oddly enough, does not require the use of oats. Go figure!). I suppose I should admit that I have a selfish interest in my otherwise benign attempt to steer you toward the right preserves. I am presently undertaking efforts to market a line of high-class jellies, with flavors that are a bit off the beaten effect. Up to now we have spinach, roadkill and dirt. We are test marketing some new “hip” flavors like “rubber blubber,” “gunpowder chowder,” and “asphalt surprise.” So far the jury is out and very unlikely to return, but that is a horse of another day.
Meanwhile, my brother would have you believe that he is “the answer man” in regard to whatever it is we’re talking about, the clear and unmistakable implication being that I know nothing. Buncombe! In point of fact, I am the answer man. Consider this not inconsiderable list of samples from my vast trove of answers, and, remember, I am just itching the surface:
1) To get to the other side
2) They don’t bury the survivors
3) One to hold the light bulb and three to yank the chair out
4) Both of them (a variant of #3)
5) The egg
I could go on and on, but surely you must know by this time, if there is one thing I do not do, it is to go on and on. I am a guy who likes to come to the point, except for that one time when I sat on a thumbtack. You had better believe I made definite I wouldn’t make that mistake again. As it turns out, I have not, even to the degree of hearing people command that I am “tack-less,” and darned proud of it, may I add.
In fact, as I look over the contents of this foray into erudition, I feel a sense of hubris in a job well done. Now, if you will pardon me, I am going to go slap myself good and hard on the back.
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