I Wekcomed Clippy's Disappearance

@Sharon Oh, that is more or less as I always understood it, but Yours Truly that MS 'Word' tries to enforce among its other clutter, is an Americanism. So I regard my using it, as a Briton living in Britain, as much an affectation as calling my home, chez [Mell].

Informal letters, I agree, we begin and end with whatever is appropriate to the individuals, but I think the rise in "Dear Sir/Madam" is due to social egg-shell treading.

@Sharon I wonder if the reason they got rid of the paper clip is because MS Office is not cheap and they figured that if someone bought it or is even using it, they mean business and not just chicken scratching BS like one does on a text file.

@HoeBag I suppose that's possible. I don't touch M$ products myself. I run Linux and use OpenOffice for word processing etc.

@WalterF Noodle and Doodle sound like a cartoon featuring a couple of ducks with Down Syndrome.

@ArishMell there's not always a whole lot of Rhyme or Reason. The company I work for has a pretty straightforward name. Even if someone had never heard of it, they could pretty easily figure out what kind of business it is.

@HoeBag It's very likely some of the electronics on which you are reading this are on a board printed by machines made by a British company called DEK.

It makes precision screen-printing machines for the electronics industry, is under new ownership (I don't know its nationality) but keeps the DEK name for the brand. Its founder's original machines were for labelling oil-drums, souvenirs and the like, but he was far-sighted enough to want a language-free brand-name that can be international, plus two English words to say what it was.

Hence, "DEK Printing Machines Ltd."

On the other hand, the tracking-cookie filter on my parallel Outlook account, lists umpteen, utterly meaningless names. Looking some up, they seem mainly IT and advertising "consultants", but you wold not know it from their names.

'

Anyway we digress. The OP is about letters and communication etiquette.

At least letters usually retain good manners and appropriate personal levels.

I have had one or two e-mails intended to be friendly but started with "Hey". That word is a peremptory warning or stern admonition, not a friendly greeting.

Last Christmas I even received a Christmas "card" produced by typing the names and any message on an expensive-looking digital form complete with CGI. I thought first it was some advertising campaign, then realised it was from long-time friends who have always previously exchanged real cards. Whilst pleased they had thought of me, I was hurt by this impersonal approach. I would not be surprised if you can use it with a digital address-list. Nor would I trust the e-card company not to read resulting contact-patterns for selling on. Christmas by database and friendship by spread-sheet.

@HoeBag The image doesn't show, but I like your idea!

I think MS used it only on WIN-5. (I wonder why there were apparently no WINs 1, 2, 4 and 6? There was an 8, briefly, and an NT.)

I use WIN 7 Pro. I tried 10 but it was a disaster and seemed to show MS simply running out of ideas so just tinkering around the edges.

@ArishMell Damn, well the image is of wire cutters.

My room mate had a good question though -
OK so there was windows 95, 98, etc.
Well then it was windows 7, 8, 10... What happens when it gets back up to 95?

There isn't too much rhyme nor reason for how the name their OS.
Well like Windows ME (Millennium Edition ) was not the same as Windows 2000.

Funny thing is, even since Windows 95, things haven't really changed much. Just marketing I suppse.

@HoeBag LOL!

I did wonder if it might be wire- cutters or something similar!.

I think you are right about Windows not changing much. Many, including me, consider XP and the Office software associated with it was Microsoft's best, and it has deteriorated since then.

We had WIN NT on a few computers at work, but because it did not support USB connections and drives it was soon obsolete.

My introduction to computers was at work with MS-DOS, but that was soon replaced by WIN 3.1. We also used small Hewlett-Packard PCs carrying locally-written programmes in BASIC, for operating test and measurement equipment.

@ArishMell I legitimately don't remember this comment at all

@DDonde Which comment? I was amused by your "...did joy fill his heart". :-)

@ArishMell That one lol