The Washington herald., 1913-05-25
Russell Sage Foundation
Makes Public Interesting
Result Of Inquiry Into Let
ter Writing by Americans.

To determine whether there Is any
definite standard or accepted ruIe for
opening and closing personal ana business
letters the Russell Sage Foundation mas
just completed an inquiry into the ways
Of American letter writer's. In eonnec-
ton with another inquiry, Dr.. Leonard
P. Ayres. director OF the division OF es,,-
cation. set his statistical experts to work
to tabulate the forms Of salutation and
closing In 1000 letters on varied subjects
written from all parts of the United
States. When the tabulators had finished
counting Dear Sir "Gentlemen-
Dear Madame" and MY Dear" and
had counted every variant Of Yours
truly" Respectfully" Sincerely" and
even the with loves" 1t was found
that there were nine popular ways of
opening letters and twelve forms used
by few people. or twenty-one saluta-
tions in all. while twenty-five different
ways Of ending letter seemed to pro-
vide all the terminals needed for writing
to business houses. friends. relatives or
sweethearts.
Every one of the letters began with
some complimentary Introduction, and
only ninety-eight out of 1000 writer's
quit when he was through and signed his
name without bothering to say that he
was true. or sincere. or respectful, or
cordial 10 the recipient of his missive
The fact that only about per cent Of
these 1000 writer's. who represent all
social conditions and all degrees of edu-
cation and employment, omitted the
honeyed terminal words seems to indi-
cate that the advice Of the efficiency
engineers that we omit these now mean
ingless phrases and save time. ink, and
paper Is not gaining rapid acceptance.
Few Omit saIatatfon.
These writer's seemed to prefer in the
interest Of courtesy to make the twenty
four useless strokes of pen or to press
a typewriter key ten times or more to
say Dear Sir" or its equivalent All
but ninety-eight of them found it i'm
possible to sign their names until they
had wasted thirty-four pen strokes or
pressed a typewriter key twelve useless
times and wasted ink. time, and space
In some equivalent of Yours truly" ac-
cording to the ideas of the efficiency en-
gfneers. With a certain amount of cold
logic on their sides, these business time
savers point out that these Dear Sirs,"
Yours" and "Trulys'' through auto
matte repetition have become meaning
less. do not bring In one cent Of profit.
and no are 30 much waste motion. When
We write them. they say, we do not real
ly meNl: that a business recipient is
dear to us-that We really belong 10
him. These phrases. they argue. really
mean no more than: Beginning of
what I have to say" and Il have said
what I had to gay" They would have
US start with what We have to say
and quit when we're through saying II.
and thus save so much space. ink, pen
strokes. or motions in tipping.
These motion-savers point out that
when We enter a mans ofice we do not
commence by saying: Mr.. Jones. Dear
Sir. and that We do not end a confer
ence by saying Yours truly, William
Smith," as we go out Of the door. There
fore. why do so In a letter which simply
takes the place OF a personal interview?
Judging from this test with 1000 let
tiers, however. the American people do
not care to abandon in the interest of
saving fractions of a second or parts of
mill these clipped remnants of old
time courtesies-the decimated survivors
of "Honored Sir" and IT subscribe my
self your humble and obedient servant,
with which our forefathers used to be-
gin and end their mail order deals Prob
ably most of these writers would reply
to the experts by saying that one does