Dear Sirs

[Suzanne12]

Is this an acceptable way to start an email that will be received by either a man or a woman? Would you say something if a colleague used this term to send an email to a generic inbox?

Yabu - it's fine
Yanbu - it's not acceptable anymore

TheStuffWasBad OK Mesdames instead of Madams. But my point still stands; why use a reference for males to include all, as a default which effectively ignores all women.

We must also remember that "Sir"/"Madam" have other uses apart from letter salutations.

"Would you like fries with that, Board of Directors?" doesn't really work.

Where I work, we use ‘Sirs’ to an unknown recipient. I have an aversion to ‘madam’ so it doesn’t bother me.

As an English teacher you should be teaching the current correct usage, and explaining that gender-neutral phrasing is still considered informal

I have just explained to you that I DO teach the correct usage.

@NoMorePoliticsPlease I’m happy for you to send me and my colleagues a letter in lovely handwriting addressed “Dear Mesdames”

Companies have no gender or sexuality

Woah! How did sexuality get involved in this?

Umm, OK. Women, and people that identify as female, often prefer to be referred to in terms of she/her. And would most probably prefer madam rather than sir.

Men, and people that identify as male, often prefer to be referred to in terms of he/him. And would most probably prefer sir rather than madam.

I'm surprised you haven't come across this before.

I'd only use it if I was hacked off and was writing a very pompous letter to a business. It's all about the tone...

So Dear Madam/Sir covers it perfectly then, no? Not sure why gender has to be dragged in to this at all tbh.

Woah! How did sexuality get involved in this?

By someone with a poor grasp of the meaning of words, I suppose.

StVincent That depends on whether the teacher wants the students to pass their exams, or not.
I would say teach the formal usage and make them aware of the informal usage so they can choose what is appropriate in a given circumstance.

The phrase used was "The masculine connotes the feminine" and I really can't get worked up about that.

This is exactly why everyday sexism still happens. While we still have all these small, everyday references that imply the feminine is subsumed into the masculine, it will affect the way people think, subconsciously. It's more than time to bring formal language up to date.

It sounds like the start of a scam email that will probably continue with an outrageous offer in slightly wrongly worded English.

Dear Sirs is the company as in the separate legal entity that a company is.

Bloggs Limited, has no gender or sex but is still addressed as Dear Sirs.

MulticolourMophead: I know. I don't mind it.

Anyone who refers to a group of people who they don't know for sure are all male as 'gentlemen' clearly isn't one.

“...syllables and the second word is a voiceless alveolar sibilant rather than a bilabial nasal sound.”

that must win the mansplanation of the day award surely?

MulticolourMophead: I know. I don't mind it.

That was ambiguous: I don't mind what you call everyday sexism. I don't agree with your last sentence.

That depends on whether the teacher wants the students to pass their exams, or not

Seriously Hopeless?

Yabu its standard use when writing to generic emails where the gender of the receiver is unknown

But why should it be, when it's based on such outdated and sexist assumptions? Feels like convention for convention's sake to me. These things never change unless we challenge them.

We should start using "Dear You". Note the capital Y to be polite. Gender neutral, non offensive, simple to remember, 3 letters only.
Mesdames reminds me of very tasty cheese

Not just legal firms. In our automatic system unless you write in a person's name it defaults to Sirs - but the system is about 30 years old!

No-one has yet addressed the question of why a respectful term for males, and a respectful term for females, should be two different words.

Probably because no one thinks that?

What we object to is the 'neutral' word being the male term (yet again), not the concept of a catch-all.

If we can name a thousand and one genders we're certainly able to come up with a truly neutral term. We're a creative species like that.

Companies have no gender

In reality, you're addressing the directors of the company. The expectation is that they're male. It's not a coincidence that it's 'Sirs' and not 'Dear Legal Entity'.

I think says something about the legal profession

To be fair, it's not all of us! My (large, international) firm has banned it. Some partners do cling to the old ways and some letters will slip through, but it has been recognised as outdated and not how we wish to do business. Thankfully, I'm seeing it less from other bigger firms now too. I do think it will die out.

Can you give me an example of this oft occurring phenomenon?

A person's sex is male. They identify as a woman. Their 'gender' dictates they are to be addressed as madam rather than sir. Otherwise, the speaker runs the risk of being accused of a hate crime which could result in the the full force of the Twitterati being brought down upon their head and a complaint being made to West Yorkshire Police so their thinking can be checked.

I use Dear Madam/Sir

Dear Sir or Madam
Dear Sir/Madam
Dear Madam/Sir
They all cover the same ground (formal address to someone you don't know). They all also avoid the sexism of Dear Sirs. Anyone who chooses to keep using Dear Sirs instead of the viable, nonsexist alternatives - well, they've told you a lot about themselves with that choice. None of it positive.

Someone mentioned their disdain for 'Ms'. We always, always address a letter to a named woman as 'Ms' unless you know for certain that she has a different preference. No one needs to be in the business of guessing at your marital status.