The blogosphere has been inundated with people mocking the new salutation and proposing alternative greetings.

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Eventually people started adding a salutation to appear friendlier and help the tone of their writings.

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On the TV in the corner the station signs off, broadcasting its nightly salutation, the waving Stars and Stripes, our national anthem.

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With text messages, the idea of a salutation doesn't even come up.

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And when e-mail first appeared, many people did not use a salutation.

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The festival even has its own salutation: Glad midsommar (Happy Midsummer).

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But on this afternoon, HBO's since-promoted Richard Plepler and Michael Lombardo took the stage to deliver a different kind of message or, more specifically, salutation: Welcome to HBO's next chapter.

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But an e-mail is not the evening news, and perhaps it is time to begin saying our inevitable fond farewell to "Dear, " and to say that farewell before the salutation has already become dearly departed.

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The State of the E-Mail Salutation.

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There was no other salutation.

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