>>>>Hi everybody,
>>>>
>>>>I'm writing a letter to Lauren and need to know how to proper address this person. I started Dear Sir, but then had second thought.
>>>>
>>>>What do you think?
>>>
>>>May not apply in your case, but if you *heard* the name "Lauren" rather than saw it spelled out somewhere, it might actually be "Lorne" - which would almost certainly be male.
>>
>>No, I saw it written. I'm almost positive that we're speaking about female, but in any case, I forgot where exactly I saw that position. I need to search for it again. I guess if I find it I would write Dear Ms. ... with 2% probability of a mistake.
>
>
>Look. Write to Ms XXX. Serves him right if you're wrong, for not making it clear he's a Mr. If I were a Hillary, Evelyn, etc, one of those ambiguous names normally attributed to a female then I'd make it clear that I was a man.

This makes me remember a sketch on Saturday Night Live. I think the name of the character was Pat. Really funny. You saw that? Nobody knew if the character was a man or a woman. People asked questions so they would know but Pat's answers were never clear enough.