There are no hard-and-fast grammar rules for capitalizing the first letters of job titles, but in formal written communication, the astute communicator does it as a matter of elementary courtesy. In a well-established social or academic hierarchy, not to observe this formality will understandably be taken as a sign of disrespect—even spite or contempt—for the holder of the position being addressed. I am therefore not surprised at all that your Australian professor didn’t take so kindly to your addressing her in your letter simply as “dean of faculty” instead of “Dean of Faculty.” In a very real sense, you demeaned her, so her outrage towards you, while probably excessive and unbecoming of her, wasn’t at all surprising.
We need to make a clear distinction between the position as a term and the formal job title for it. From a purely grammar standpoint in an exposition or narrative, we can routinely use lower-case characters for the first letters of the position being held by a particular person, as in “Joanna Smith is the dean of faculty of X University.” But when referring to her in her formal capacity, protocol and elementary courtesy demand that she be formally addressed as follows (assuming she has a doctorate, of course): “Dr. Joanna Smith, PhD, Dean of Faculty, X University.” All the more so is capitalization of the first letters of the title required when it is used ahead of the name: “Dean of Faculty Joanna Smith.” By doing this, the writer will definitely be much more welcome and agreeable to the recipient of the message, who then can be expected to be more receptive to what the writer has in mind and what the writer wants to happen or to be done.
But let’s now take up your next question: Do we really have to capitalize every job title in sight as your professor suggested? I don’t think so, but to get the results we want from the people we are formally writing to, we need to be sensitive to their temperament and emotional needs; if they are known to have big egos, we should capitalize their job title as a matter of course. To quibble about the grammatical correctness of doing so would really be counterproductive and—as you’ve found in your case—thoroughly disastrous. The lesson to be learned here is that in formal communication, whether written or spoken, etiquette and precedence—the formal term for this is “protocol”—should trump grammar correctness at all times.
For your better appreciation of the need to observe the social graces, I am posting below an essay that I wrote for my “English Plain and Simple” column in
The Manila Times way back in 2004:
The proper and improper forms of address
(360th of a series)
I was surprised to receive e-mail from a U.K.-based Times reader the other day asking me to clarify the rules for writing official correspondence. Mr. Nestor Padalhin, using a yahoo.com.uk address, observed: “My concern is the agreement between the salutation and the complimentary close in official correspondence. The many books on official letter-writing I checked were unanimous on this rule: ‘When the salutation is formal, the complimentary close is also formal; when the salutation is informal, the complimentary close is also informal.’
“I am therefore terribly irritated every time I see official communications from high-ranking officials of both the Executive Department (including Malacañang Palace) and the Legislative Department that ignore this rule. They usually have this salutation and complimentary close: Dear Assistant Secretary Cruz, ending with Very truly yours, or Sir: ending with Sincerely yours.
“Shouldn’t the salutation Dear Assistant Secretary Cruz in such cases end with Sincerely yours as complimentary close, and those using Sir: end with Very truly yours? More formal styles can, of course, be used if the addressee ranks much higher than the writer. But I find that many high-ranking letter-writers don’t even know when to use the formal style and when to use the informal.
“Am I correct in my observations? What can we do to correct this situation? Have the rules of official correspondence changed without me noticing it? Or should we just ignore those rules and follow the incorrect usage on the presumption that practice makes right?”
Dear Nestor:
Having never been part of the government bureaucracy, I’m not really that much of a stickler for protocol. But I had worked in a large corporation for many years, and in whatever end I was of the communication loop, I also found it terribly disconcerting to see protocols broken or trifled with. Sometimes, in the deep of night, I would wake up in a cold sweat imagining that I had stupidly blown a promotion by addressing someone of much higher rank as “Dear Frank” instead of “Dear Sir,” and ending with “Sincerely” instead of the more formal “Respectfully yours.”
But you’re definitely right in arguing for judiciously observing protocol in the government bureaucracy; after all, the stability and efficiency of the service depend so much on it. To begin with, carefully considering who is being addressed, I believe it’s good etiquette to stick to one of the three well-accepted groupings of complimentary closes. In deference to people of much higher rank, like a country’s president, a university chancellor, or a company’s chairman of the board, it is only proper to acknowledge their higher station by closing with “Yours respectfully” or “Respectfully yours.” When talking purely business with our superiors and higher-ranking people elsewhere—our own department head or another company’s general manager, for example—closing with “Very truly yours” or “Yours truly” would be more appropriate. But for formal letters to company equals and peer group members, we will hit just the right register by closing with “Sincerely,” “Yours sincerely,” or “Sincerely yours.”
But obviously more crucial in formal correspondence is addressing people of a much higher station in life. This requires etiquette in its most refined, delicate, and—shall we say?—stratified forms. Thus, even if we will rarely ever get to write to such people at all, it will be socially illuminating to familiarize ourselves with the quintessentially correct ways of addressing them. Also, as a matter of good form, we should make it a point to always end our salutation with a colon, never with a comma.
Here now are some representative formal forms of address:
Our own country’s president: “Dear Mr. [Madame] President:” Foreign king or queen: “Your Majesty:” Foreign prince or princess: “Your Royal Highness:” Foreign head of state: “Excellency:” or “Dear Mr. [Madame] Prime Minister:” Supreme Court chief justice: “Dear Mr. [Madame] Chief Justice:” Senator: “Dear Senator [surname]:” Congressman: “Dear Rep. [surname]:” Mayor: “Dear Mayor [surname]:” Judge: “Dear Judge [surname]:” Our ambassador to another country: “Dear Mr. [Madame] Ambassador:” Foreign ambassador to our country: “Excellency:” or “Dear Mr. [Madame] Ambassador:” Military officers: “Dear [full rank + last name]:”, as in “Dear Brig. Gen. Reyes:”
The Pope: “Your Holiness:” or “Most Holy Father:” Cardinal: “His Eminence:” Roman Catholic bishop: “Your Excellency:” Protestant bishop: “Dear Bishop [surname]:” Roman Catholic priest: “Dear Reverend Father:” or “Dear Father:” Protestant clergy: “Dear Mr./Mrs. [surname]:” College or university president: “Dear President [surname]:” College or university dean: “Dear Dean [surname]:”
That’s about all we need to know about salutations and complimentary closes, which is not to say that they are a small matter. They are the hallmarks of elementary courtesy in formal communication. They not only separate us from the barbarians but make us appear much more agreeable, and make those reading us more receptive to what we have in mind and what we want them to do. (March 25, 2004)
As a cautionary note about capitalization, though, I must hasten to add the two paragraphs below from “A Style Guide for Writing in English,” a later essay that I wrote in my English-usage column in
The Manila Times:
Capitalization. The unbridled use of so many capital letters in prose can be very distracting; except in cases where they are needed or deserved, upper case letters are actually telltale signs of exaggeration—the prose equivalent of screaming. As a general rule, only the proper names of persons, places, companies and brands, and institutions as well as months and official names of holidays should automatically merit the upper case in their first letters, as in “Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,” “Cebu City, Philippines,” “Microsoft,” “Windows 98,” “Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office,” “Civil Service Commission,” “August,” “Rizal Day,” and “Ramadan.”
Most other uses of the upper case are best left to individual judgment, but any doubt on this should be resolved in favor of the lower case. It grates on the nerves, for instance, to read cloying photo-captions using upper-case letters, like this: “Madame Alyssa [M…], Supreme Patroness of the Arts and Culture in Asia, cuts the Ceremonial Ribbon during the Company’s 25th Anniversary.” The same upper-case mania also looks awful in résumés and job application letters: “Served as Assistant Treasury Manager in an Acting Capacity for Three Months When My Superior was On Trial with the Sandiganbayan.” This tendency to capitalize first letters often reflects deep insecurity and doubt on the intrinsic value of one’s accomplishments.
I hope that this puts everything in the proper perspective for you.
