IS it possible that you haven't written a thank you letter just because you don't know how to address the person? No of course it isn't. There may be many reasons why you don't write a thank you letter: because you meant to and didn't or because you are lazy or ungrateful; or don't think thank you letters matter; or because you lost the address; or the person left town.
Surely it couldn't be because you didn't know what form of name to use. Well this is what this woman says. She says that another mother drove her child home from school on a cold, wet day, gave the child a cup of soup from a flask and went considerably out of her way. She had left a note saying that if ever the weather was terrible like that again she would be glad to offer a lift. So what was the problem about thanking her?
She thinks this woman is a Professor Something or Doctor Something and it would be so ignorant to call her just Mrs Something. Wouldn't it?
But how did she sign her name on the note in the first place? She signed it Mary Murphy or whatever. So why then could the reply not begin Dear Mary Murphy? But you can't do that.
Can't you? This is alarming. It's how I answer every letter I get when I don't know the people. I put both their names. I thought everyone did. Apparently only people who are Media, Bohemian or who Just Don't Care do this. Other people, real people, go to the trouble to find out the appropriate form of address. Or not find it, as the case may be, I suggested darkly.
By now, lines had been drawn and support appearing for both points of view. There are those who say that it's discourteous, and making some kind of a point, not to give people the title that is their due. It's being falsely matey and unimpressed. There are those who believe that if somebody writes to you giving himself or herself a title, be it Reverend or Doctor or Sister or Senator or Lord, then you might certainly feel they want to be addressed in that way and you would do it willingly.
But really and truly would you waste a nanosecond wondering whether to put Mrs or Miss Murphy, or would Ms be acceptable, when you could put Mary Murphy? The purists say that you might as well do the thing right if you're going to do it at all.
Why do we have forms of address like Mr and Mrs if people like me are going to cut a swathe through them? And I said that if you were going to take this attitude you would still be putting Esquire on letters.
There was a silence. A lot of them are.
THEN it got to the stage where people had to go and get old envelopes to try and prove whether or not anyone did put Esq on letters anymore. And it's very hard to find an envelope addressed to you. Most people throw them out.
Or do they? I'm getting increasingly nervous about what "most people" do. And they always, ask you for an envelope, addressed to yourself, as some kind of identification in video shops and places. So maybe everyone except me keeps envelopes.
I know that I would have problems if people were addressing me as Esq but we did look through letters that come to the house in case the male recipient gets addressed in this form, and it's only very rarely.
Unexpected places, like the motor insurance, place, puts Esq and some of those organisations which ask you to Open This Immediately In Case You Have Won £5,000. But not any real people, not the telephone or the electricity or the gas. One of the banking groups is inclined to throw a few Esqs around the other isn't.
It used to have some kind of nuance, like you put Esq on an envelope to show you thought the recipient was a gentleman, someone who was of the squire class, someone with land. What did that make those without the Esq, you might wonder? Did it show that you thought of them as worthy artisans, honest trades folk, the poor? It was tradition, say the Esq supporters, no need to throw everything out just for some woolly liberal and politically correct views.
From the envelope search they grudgingly agreed that "most people" didn't write it as a matter of course but, from their point of view, a respectable few still did carry on with this creepy, outdated, servile form of address, so they would continue with it.
Then we moved to inst. and ult. Did anyone still use these words, I wondered?
Yes, is the answer. People still do. And they defend it too. It's a handy shorthand for saying last month or this month why on earth banish it to be folksy?
But it doesn't mean anything you can wail. It does to the people who write it - those who thank you for yours of the 21st ult. or refer me to a communication of the 6th inst. Do I write no business letters at all, they ask confused?
I do, all the time or, let's put it this way, I think I'm writing them all the time but I'd say: "Thank you for your letter of the 21st of December but I still don't understand what item I am meant to have a maintenance contract ON. If you can tell me, and if I have, then I will gladly pay it."
They listened.
"You write letters like that?" someone asked, awe stricken. I don't do it for effect; I do it because it's simple.
Why say "prior to" when you could say "before", or erroneous, or utilise or whilst or emanate or disburse or desist or implement? Is there any point in saying that you enclose a form "as per today's discussion"? Ask yourself honestly, do people use these words much in real life and, if the answer is no, then why graft them on to business letters, making the communication more obscure and alarming than it is already?
I'd love to know if other people, real people, try to keep things simple in forms of address and in saying what they mean in letters, and if they find that this helps. It would be a great comfort to me to know that I was not alone and increasingly eccentric in this very humble way of trying to make the world less complicated.