Discussion Groups / British English / January 2005

Hi everyone,

Could/should I use "Dear Madam/Sir" instead of "Dear Sir/Madam" ?

I am writing an email to a recruitment agency. I know the e-mail will probably
be opened and read by a female employee (she was pointed out to me by another
employee), but I don't know her name. The email address is like:
specialist@agency.example.com and the e-mails apparently go straight to her,
because she's the specialist at the moment.

I think using Dear Madam on its own is wrong, in case someone else receives the
e-mail, and also because the body of the e-mail is a cover letter which will
probably go to a wider audience. Dear Sir/Madam seems a bit inappropriate, and I
was thinking Dear Madam/Sir would be better considering the likely recipient,
and the overwhelming presence of females in this and other recruitment agencies
(the potential audience).

Sir/Madam is the traditional anonymous address, especially from a bloke, but
seems to me to be making a sexist point in this case. On the other hand, using
Madam/Sir robs the world of masculinity for no obvious advantage if the
recipient is not truly (sincerely?) known to be female. Plus ça change and all
that. It can sometimes be sooo difficult sounding neither sexist nor over-PC
(nor queer).

I'm a bloke and I've never seen the usage before, and now I've got confused and
I'm doubting both my confidence in my ability to perform etiquette in a written
form, and my wider sense of masculinity within the gendered corporate social
space. I am not bothered by the gender power reversal (if any) invoked by
switching the traditional masculine word order, but is this what women write to
each other?

What does the group think?

BTW I'll probably change it to Dear <agency>
What is the latest thinking on e-mail salutations?
Dear Madam is sooo passé.