Vary situational email greetings

Dear Miss Manners: What do you recommend to start emails for business, and for personal messages? And how to sign off ?

I often see “Hi” as the start and “Thank you” as the ending, and sometimes that just doesn’t feel right.

Gentle Reader: Emails cover a wide range of formality. Therefore the recipients and subject matter must always be considered when using salutations — and they may even be excluded altogether, once you are deep into the exchange.

“Hi,” although becoming commonplace, still strikes Miss Manners as being cheeky, or at least too breezy for business correspondence. And “thank you” is premature when accompanying a request.

Treat formal emails as you would letters — using “Dear” and “Yours truly” for business, and more affectionate terms for your personal affairs. Miss Manners will leave those to your own discretion, depending on the degree of intimacy — and the relative privacy of your internet connection.

Dear Miss Manners: When eating a pastry (doughnut, muffin, cupcake) in public, should you eat it with a knife and fork?

Gentle Reader: These are classified as finger food, so you will be considered amusing to do so. However, Miss Manners notes that you will also avoid getting cream on your nose.

Dear Miss Manners: My wife and I dine out often, and never cease to be amazed when restaurant servers feel compelled to comment on how much of our meal we’ve eaten.

We’ve heard comments like “You really killed that,” “You must have hated that,” and “Wow, you must have really been hungry.”

These type of comments have ruined more than a few otherwise pleasant meals. I would think that restaurant management would stress the need for appropriate communications with customers. What is the proper response to such boorish and unprofessional comments?

Gentle Reader: “How kind of you, with the work you have to do, to take the time to watch how I eat.”

Send questions to Miss Manners at her website, missmanners.com or email her at dearmissmanners @gmail.com.