Few Writers Use 'Dear' in Emails and Text Messages

This is especially interesting, since the writer cites letters written by Abraham Lincoln. At WSJ, "Hey, Folks: Here's a Digital Requiem For a Dearly Departed Salutation":

When Abraham Lincoln wrote to Ulysses S. Grant in July 1863, after a key victory during the Civil War, he began his letter, "My dear General."

When Giselle Barry emailed a throng of reporters recently to tell them about an important development regarding her congressman boss, she started the message, "Hey, folks."

Like many modern communicators, Ms. Barry, a spokeswoman for Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, has nixed the salutation "dear" in her emails.

"Dear is a bit too intimate and connotes a personal relationship," she said.

Ms. Barry said she wants to keep her business communications with the press at "the utmost and highest level of professionalism."

Across the Internet the use of dear is going the way of sealing wax. Email has come to be viewed as informal even when used as formal communication, leaving some etiquette experts appalled at the ways professional strangers address one another.

People who don't start communications with dear, says business-etiquette expert Lydia Ramsey, "lack polish."

"They come across as being abrupt," says Ms. Ramsey, who founded a Savannah, Ga., etiquette consultancy called Manners That Sell.

"It sets the tone for that business relationship, and it shows respect," she says. "Email is so impersonal it needs all the help it can get."

Be sure to click through. In another example President Lincoln addressed a letter to Mary Todd as "Dear Wife."