Thread: ¿Buenos días, Ana o Buenos días Ana?

Hola, tengo una pequeña duda con respecto a si va con coma o no en te caso. He visto e-mails en donde la gente pone coma y otros no. ¿Cuál sería correcto en un e-mail formal?

-Buenos dias, Ana:

-Buenos días Ana:

¿Iría con coma? Es una pequeña duda existencial
Gracias por la ayuda.

I think the first might be correct. I think the name is considered to be a parenthetical, and therefore is separated from the rest of the sentence.

the first one is more correct.

I agree with the detective, the second option is better. Without comma.

I'm really speaking about English---I don't know the rules in Spanish.

In English, parentheticals can be set off with commas, dashes, parentheses, or brackets, each one having a slightly different meaning.

I think it's a really interesting point that we would never write "Dear, Ana." I think that might be because in that case "dear" is actually an adjective that describes Ana (like "querida"). It's not a greeting. But, in English, commas are used for direct address (for example in a greeting) to show that the greeting is to the person, not about the person.

I see both.

Example:

With comma:
http://www.cadena100.es/especiales/bdjn/index.html

Without comma: http://londres.cervantes.es/FichasCu...47680_22_1.htm

It seems to me that "Buenos días Ana" (no comma) is the traditional way of writing the greeting.

I'm not sure I understand the difference between an introduction to a formal email and a greeting. To my way of thinking, the introduction to an email is a greeting. Also, where "buenos días" seems formal, "good morning" is a rather informal greeting for an email in English. And quite possibly the conventions for punctuation differ between the two languages.

I couldn't find a usage dictionary in Spanish or English that addresses the issue directly. The only mention of greetings is that of direct address, which does use the comma (in English). But, it leaves unanswered the question of whether or not a greeting in an email or letter is direct address or something else.

Does anyone have a resource that deals with specifically this issue?

Thanks for something interesting to think about!