On Friday 10 July 2015 15:37:12 Brad Rogers wrote: > On Fri, 10 Jul 2015 12:33:46 +0200 > <to...@tuxteam.de> wrote: > > Hello to...@tuxteam.de, > > >Got it. The "Sirs" is definitely unfortunate. > > Sirs is still the correct form if you are addressing unknown persons in a > company, organisation, etc. I know some people object because "it > excludes women" but in this context, the masculine is to be construed as > including the feminine.
No, I disagree. Mesdames is now fully accepted, and I would say expected, giving: Dear Sirs/Mesdames or even dear Mesdames/Sirs. Duck includes drake and mankind includes women. But "Sirs" does not and never did, include women. It dates from when there wouldn't be any women there anyway. I did once get told: "The term gentlemen shall at all times be taken to include you, Miss Reisz". Which was fine. He was acknowledging that it basically didn't. I once had a letter on the subject of the fact that I was my son's _mother_ beginning "Dear _Mr._ " People are just used to addressing letters to men. Lisi -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/201507101550.38959.lisi.re...@gmail.com
