There are various types of letters you write in business, each requiring a different tone.

The basic idea here is to grovel around like a slug writhing in its own slime. For example:

Dear Mr. Herckle:

It certainly was an extremely great pleasure to fly out to your office in Butte last week, and even though I didn’t have the enormous gigantic emotional pleasure of meeting with you in person to discuss our new product line, I was certainly extremely pleased and grateful for the opportunity to squat on your doorstep, and I certainly do want to apologize for any inconvenience or blood-stains I may have caused when your extremely impressive dog, Bart, perforated my leg.

Your humble servant,

Byron B. Buffington

In these cases, you want to set a tone that is polite, yet firm:

Dear Mr. Hodpecker:

In going over our records, I note that you have not responded to our invoice of January 12, nor to our reminders of February 9, March 6, April 11, May 4, and June 6; and when we sent Miss Bleemer around to discuss this matter with you personally, you locked her in a conference room with a snake.

Mr. Hodpecker, we of course value your business, and we very much want to keep you as a customer. At least that is what I am trying to tell my two top collection assistants, the Bulemia brothers, Victor and Anthony. They, on the other hand, would prefer to keep you as a pet. They even bought one of those little cages that airlines transport animals in. To me, it looks just barely big enough for a cocker spaniel, but Victor and Anthony believe they can make you fit.

Expecting to hear from you very, very soon in regards to this matter, I remain

Sincerely yours,

Byron B. Buffington

P.S. Victor has a complete set of auto-body tools.

You have to be thoughtful here. See, anybody can get a nice letter of recommendation written about him (“Mr. Hitler always kept his uniform very clean”). So most prospective employers tend to discount what such letters say. This means that to make any kind of impression at all, you must exaggerate violently.

Let’s say, for example, you’re writing a letter of recommendation for a good employee named Bob, and you tell the simple truth:

“Bob Tucker is by far the best foreman we ever had. He never missed a day of work, got along well with his subordinates, and increased our productivity by 47 percent.”

If a prospective employer saw such a ho-hum letter of recommendation, he would naturally assume that Bob was an arsonist child molester. You should spice up the letter with statements such as: “Working on his own time during lunch hour, Bob developed a cure for heart disease.” Or: “On at least three separate occasions, Bob sacrificed his life so that others might live.”

1. USE THE WORD “TRANSPIRE” A LOT. Wrong: The dog barked. Right: What transpired was, the dog barked. Even better: A barking of the dog transpired.

2. ALSO USE “PARAMETER.” Wrong: Employees should not throw paper towels into the toilet. Right: Employees should not throw paper towels into the parameters of the toilet.

3. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE PHRASE “TED AND” WITH THE WORD “MYSELF.” Wrong: Ted and I think the pump broke. Right: Ted and myself think the pump broke. Even better: It is the opinion of Ted and myself that a breakage of the pump transpired.

4. IF SOMETHING IS FOLLOWING SOMETHING ELSE, ALWAYS LET THE READER KNOW IN

ADVANCE VIA THE WORDS: “THE FOLLOWING.” Wrong: We opened up the pump and found a dead bat. Right: We opened up the pump and found the following: a dead bat.

5. ALWAYS STRESS THAT WHEN YOU TOLD SOMEBODY SOMETHING, YOU DID IT VERBALLY. Wrong: I told him. Right: I told him verbally.

6. NEVER SPLIT AN INFINITIVE. An infinitive is a phrase that has a “to” at the beginning, such as “Today, I am going to start my diet.” You should not split such a phrase with another word, as in “Today, I am definitely going to start my diet,” because it makes you sound insecure about it. It sounds like you know darned well you’ll be hitting the pecan fudge before sundown.

7. NEVER END A SENTENCE WITH A PREPOSITION. Prepositions are words like

“with,” “into,” “off,” “exacerbate,” etc. The reason you should never end a sentence with one is that you would be violating a rule of grammar. Wrong: Youse better be there with the ransom money, on account of we don’t want to have to hack nobody’s limbs off. Right: ... on account of we don’t want to have to hack off nobody’s limbs. Even better: ... on account of we don’t want to have to hack off nobody’s limbs with a chain saw.

8. AVOID DANGLING PARTICIPLES. A participle is the letters “ing” at the ends of words like “extenuating.” You want to avoid having it “dangle” down and disrupt the sentence underneath: There appear to be some extenuating circumstances. Hey! Get that participle out of here!! Ted and myself feel that these ...

Q. When’s it okay to say “between you and I”?

A. It is correct in the following instance: “Well, just between you and I, the cosmetic surgeon took enough cellulite out of her upper arms to raft down the Colorado River on.”

Q. What is the purpose of the apostrophe?

A. The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered signs to alert the reader that an “S” is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT

PERSONAL CHECK’S or: NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ITEM’S. Another important grammar concept to bear in mind when creating hand-lettered signs is that you should put quotation marks around random words for decoration, as in “TRY” OUR HOT DOG’S or even TRY “OUR” HOT DOG’S.

Q. When do you say “who” and when do you say “whom”?

A. You say “who” when you want to find out something, like for example if a friend of yours comes up and says, “You will never guess which of your immediate family members just lost a key limb in a freak Skee-Ball accident,” you would reply: “Who?” You say “whom” when you are in Great Britain or you are angry (as in: “And just whom do you think is going to clean up after these elk?”).

Q. Like many writers, I often get confused about when to use the word “affect” and when to use “infect.” Can you help me out?

A. Here is a simple pneumatic device for telling these two similar-sounding words (or “gramophones”) apart: just remember that “infect” begins with

“in,” which is also how “insect” begins, while “affect” begins with “af,” which is an abbreviation for “Air Force.”

Q. I have a question concerning the expression: “As far as Fred.” I would like to know whether it is preferable to say: “As far as Fred, he always gets the hives from that spicy food”; or, “As far as Fred, that spicy food always gives him the hives.”

A. They are both preferable.

Q. What do they mean on the weather forecast when they say we are going to have “thundershower activity”?

A. They mean we are not going to have an actual thundershower, per se, but we are going to have thundershower activity, which looks very similar to the untrained eye.

Q. I think my wife is having an affair.

A. I wouldn’t doubt it.