The Definition and Examples of Salutations

At the beginning of a conversation, letter, email, or another form of communication, a salutation is a polite greeting, an expression of goodwill, or other sign of recognition. Also called a greeting. As Joachim Grzega points out in the article Hal, Hail, Hello, Hi: Greetings in English Language History, Salutation terms are an important part of a conversation--they tell the other I feel friendly toward you, and they are maybe the start of a longer conversation (Speech Acts in the History of English, 2008). EtymologyFrom the Latin, health Examples and Observations Theres more to the story, Alex announced. Trust me.Katie hadnt heard him come up, and she stood.Oh, hey, she said, blushing against her will.How are you? Alex asked.Good. She nodded, feeling a bit flustered.(Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven. Hachette Book Group, 2010) J.D.: Greetings and salutations. You a Heather?Veronica Sawyer: No, Im a Veronica.(Christian Slater and Winona Ryder in Heathers, 1988) Cowboy: Howdy.Adam Kesher: Howdy to you.Cowboy: Beautiful evening.Adam Kesher: Yeah.(Monty Montgomery and Justin Theroux in Mulholland Dr., 2001) How Are You (Ya)?I bumped into an acquaintance. Hi Sally, I said. How are you? She  paused and then stopped and said hello and how was I and how were the children and it was manifestly obvious she couldnt remember my name.(Philip Hesketh,  How to Persuade and Influence People. Wiley, 2010)The phone rang. ONeil speaking.Howdy, Pat. Its Mac.Mac,  how are ya? I was just thinkin about ya. Great to hear from ya.(Jay Feldman,  Suitcase Sefton and the American Dream. Triumph Books, 2006)Listen to how [people] say, How are you? They dont really say, How are you? They say, How are ya? . . . How are ya? means Just say good, and walk away. I dont really want to know. Register that I asked, then proceed not to tell me.(Paul Reiser, Couplehood, 1995) How Ya Doin?Everyone seems friendly at first, everyone stops and asks, Hi, how ya doin? But after a while you realize that thats it, nothing ever follows up that Hi, how ya doin? And to answer that with anything less exuberant than, Pretty good, is a social outrage. The creed is to be bright, brisk and busy.(Upamanyu Chatterjee, English, August: An Indian Story. Faber and Faber, 1988)When you meet somebody at a post office, he or she says, How are you, how are you doing? At Laguna, people will stand there and theyll tell you how they are doing. At Laguna, its a way of interacting.(Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman. Simon and Schuster, 1997) Hey!Hey . . . is basically a synonym for  hi--a friendly greeting. Until fairly recently, it was confined to the American South.  The Dictionary of American Regional English  (DARE) cites a 1944 survey as reporting that  hey  is the common term of familiar salutation of children and young people in most of the South;  hello  seems to them either semiformal or archaic. On many northern and western campuses the term is  hi. . . .But not anymore. . . .  My sense is that among people under about 40 from all regions,  hey  for some time has been at least as popular as  hi,  and probably more so, and now seems completely unremarkable.(Ben Yagoda, ‘Hey’ Now. The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 6, 2016) Brief EncountersWhen persons accidentally encounter one another, it appears, they may be at liberty to confine their remarks to an exchange of greetings (Goffman 1953:485 points out that length of salutation may depend on the period that had elapsed since the last salutation and the period that seemed likely before the next; but a minimal exchange is possible); when there is a planned or intended encounter, more than a minimal pair is done.(Gene H. Lerner, Conversation Analysis: Studies From the First Generation. John Benjamins, 2004) Register and DialectSalutations in business letters (Dear Ms. Portillo, Dear Sirs) differ from those in personal letters (Hey Ashley, Dear Devon). Every text--every piece of natural language--represents characteristics of both its situation and its speaker or writer; every text is simultaneously register and dialect.(Edward Finegan, American English and Its Distinctiveness. Language in the USA: Themes for the Twenty-First Century, ed. by Edward Finegan and John R. Rickford. Cambridge University Press, 2004) Email GreetingsE-mail has changed the rules of engagement. The language of business is evolving. Our old dears are withering away, replaced in the top perch by hello, hi and hey. . . .Im fed up with people writing Hi Jean when theyve never met me, says etiquette guru Jean Broke-Smith.If youre sending a business e-mail you should begin Dear . . .--like a letter. You are presenting yourself. Politeness and etiquette are essential. . . .But why are so many of us culling Dear . . . from our e-mails, even in the workplace? The simplest answer for its detractors is that it no longer says what it means, it feels cold and distant.(James Morgan, Should E-mails Open With Dear, Hi, or Hey? BBC News Magazine, Jan. 21, 2011) The Lighter Side of SalutationsWhat ho! I said.What ho! said Motty.What ho! What ho!What ho! What ho! What ho!After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.(P.G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves, 1919)