Margit’s Note: Dear So-and-So

By Margit Detweiler

Dear You,

Have we officially tossed “Dear” out the window?

Nope.

The last email I received that began with “Dear Margit” was today at 6:05am in my spam folder from “Swimsuits for All.” “Dear” has become a false sense of personalization and almost always a sales-y plea of some sort whether political, philanthropic or you’re missing out on some amazing swimsuit deal. Dear is no longer the necessary way to start a missive.

Our abbreviated, abrupt electronic-mails are a far cry from the days of three-paged, ball-point stained beauties. They are their own form of communication. As tech reporter Farhad Manjoo once noted, “An email is both a letter and an instant message.”

But not all of us have given up the hard copies.

This week we explore letters in all their lick-and-stamp glory:

• Nancy Davis Kho is the only person in her family to write them.
• Amy Barr stopped herself from sending one.
• Jennifer Ha has kept a friendship alive through them.
• Kate Premo teaches how to write a proper thank-you.
• And I unearth a 25-year old crate of ‘em.

Yours truly, Best, Sayonara, (or the worst) Warmly,

Margit

p.s. I still love a good p.s.

p.p.s  If you want to cheat a hand-written note, we just discovered this site. Nifty.

(Photo: Onatos/freeimages.com)

Originally Published January 13, 2015. Updated April 4, 2021.