the word "dear" when writing letters

[ffrancis]

When I was young, we were taught in class how to write different types of letters like friendly and business letters. I knew the convention of writing the word "dear" plus the name of the recipient:

Dear Mary,

I also know that aside from "dear", there are many other words that can be used like "hi":

Hi Peter,

I know that the word "dear" is synonymous to "love" so I thought that when you write "Dear Mary", it might be interpreted as you are affectionate with Mary, esp. if she is not a relative like a cousin, aunt, or grandmother. In order to avoid being teased, I simply wrote the name of the recipient when writing letters:

Mary,
Peter,

But my teacher discouraged me saying that it was impolite not to use "dear" when writing letters. Years later, I thought that she might be wrong as it might not be necessarily impolite. Maybe using "dear" is just a convention in writing letters and it doesn't really mean anything. So I always used either "dear" or "hi" since then.

Do you agree that it is impolite when you omit "dear" or "hi" and simply write the name of the recipient plus a comma?

[Wobby]

You're right, 'dear', despite its traditional meaning, has just come to be used in convention for writing formal letters - e.g. "Dear Sir/Madam" - I doubt that most of the people that write these letters really have any sentiment of love in them. I would have no problem with writing 'Dear Mary' or 'Dear Peter', apart from it is quite formal. It would be a different story to write 'Dearest Mary' or 'Dearest Peter', which does carry those connotations.

If I knew Mary or Peter on a friend basis, I would say 'Hey Mary' or 'Hi Mary' or something, and that would be fine.

Omitting any sort of greeting would not really be impolite (although certainly shouldn't be used in formal letters), but would look a bit weird or brief... For example, you wouldn't tend to start a book or essay without an introduction. I would only do it for one of those fridge messages such as "Mary, gone out to buy some bread, Wobby". But you can sign off informal letters without saying 'from'.

[ewie]

I wouldn't think twice about writing Dear Sir/Madam/Miss So-and-so to start a formal letter.
Unless it was a letter of complaint: in which case I would start it Sir/Madam.

I almost always start informal letters with Dear Francis/Wobby/Fluffybum [whatever]; occasionally Hello Francis/Wobby/Chuckychops.
I wouldn't dream of starting a friendly informal letter with Francis/Wobby/Petalkins ... because it sounds pretty unfriendly to me.

[ace02nc]

Dear Sir/Madam is exactly what I would use to start a formal letter. When writing a formal letter to a business (where you're not sure of the exact person's name), you would use:

"To Whom it may concern:"

I agree with Ewie in that I would never start a message to one of my friends using their name. Instead, I would use Hey, Hi, Yo, or simply nothing (since they're a good friend and therefore I need no introduction/greeting).

Whenever I'm sending an e-mail to a coworker, I use only their name. I don't think it sounds unfriendly in this case; it's just cutting through all of the unnecessary formalities and getting to the point since we're in a business environment. Again, if it's a coworker that's also a friend, I typically won't use an introduction at all.

[panjandrum]

Sticking with letters - I always use "Dear ..." at the beginning of a letter, no matter what kind of letter or what degree of formality or informality.

[xplorer]

Once I was writing an email to the finance department, but I didn't know how to begin it, so I just wrote: Dear finance department.