I am writing

Two minor things that annoy me are symptoms of my inflexible understanding of language. I will talk about negative questioning, which troubles me, another time but for now here are two main methods of starting a letter:

Dear Sir,
I am writing to inform you that the programme you showed . . .

Dear Sir,
I wish to inform you that the programme you showed . . .

Both of these annoy me. In the first case it is obvious you are writing so there’s no need to state that. Just start by saying

“I found the programme you showed the other night rather sexless”.

The second method of starting a letter would have me reply

“you can wish all you like but you won’t get it”.

I do understand that language is fluid and evolves but we could always force a correction in usage if we insist on decent use of the English language.

I must be on the spectrum somewhere but I don’t interpret language literally it just annoys me when people are inaccurate.