And that is a good thought to carry into the composition of a business or any other kind of letter. The letter is written to convey some sort of idea. It will not perfectly convey the idea. Words have their limitations. It will not invariably produce upon the reader the effect that the writer desires. You may have heard of "irresistible" letters—sales letters that would sell electric fans to Esquimaux or ice skates to Hawaiians, collection letters that make the thickest skinned debtor remit by return mail, and other kinds of resultful, masterful letters that pierce to the very soul. There may be such letters. I doubt it. And certainly it is not worth while trying to concoct them. They are the outpourings of genius. The average letter writer, trying to be a genius, deludes only himself—he just becomes queer, he takes to unusual words, constructions, and arrangements. He puts style before thought—he thinks that the way he writes is more important than what he writes. The writer of the business letter does well to avoid "cleverness"—to avoid it as a frightful and devastating disease.
The purpose of a business letter is to convey a thought that will lead to some kind of action—immediately or remotely. Therefore there are only two rules of importance in the composition of the business letter.
The first is: Know what you want to say.
The second is: Say it.
And the saying is not a complicated affair—it is a matter of "one little word after another."
Business letters may be divided into two general classes:
(1) Where it is assumed that the recipient will want to read the letter,
(2) Where it is assumed that the recipient will not want to read the letter.
The first class comprises the ordinary run of business correspondence. If I write to John Smith asking him for the price of a certain kind of chair, Smith can assume in his reply that I really want that information and hence he will give it to me courteously and concisely with whatever comment on the side may seem necessary, as, for instance, the fact that this particular type of chair is not one that Smith would care to recommend and that Style X, costing $12.00, would be better.