Expert: Dan Smith - 9/6/2004

Question
1)  I have been told that the salutation and complimentary close are no longer required and are only optional in modern business letters.  Is this true? I haven't found a statement to this effect in the grammar and composition books I have read.
2) Are the words "guidelines" and "rules and regulations" considered singular or plural (e. g., (these, this) guidelines (is, are)...//the rules and regulations (state, states) that ...)?

Thanks for your help.

Answer
1. I have not heard of this. At any rate, it is bad manners not to do a salutation and proper close. Perhaps bad manners are becoming the standard. Of course, if you look at the many e-mails with no punctuation or capitalization it is apparent that bad manners are becoming the norm.

Don't adopt this practice. It will only encourage them. ;-)

2. Both are plural: "guidelines state/are" and "the rules and regulations state/are".

Hope this helps.