Letter Closings

[HDoug]

I just received an email which closed, "me ka ha'a ha'a" which is Hawaiian for "yours with humility" (or "humbly yours").

 

Doug

[Saevio]

That link is fantastic!

 

 

At my previous job, I started ending letters and emails with

 

Here to serve,

 

I wish that were more the norm. Where I work it has become commonplace to end emails with the ending "Please advise. . .", especially from a superior to and inferior, or in any case where there is an expectation of an answer, complaint, etc. It seems rude to me, and at odds with what is normally a more respectful corporate culture.

 

I remember running across an article about letter ettiquite from the 1880s or some such, during a google search, and being surprised at how little our (American, at least) style of letter closings have changed. The generally approved closings were "Sincerly", "Yours Truly," "Very Truly Yours," etc. with "Respectfully Yours" only considered appropriate if it was too someone you wished to convey particular respect.

 

This book - The hand-book of letter-writing from 1861 (with apologies to those outside of the US who may be restricted from access to Google Books) - has some interesting closings. It is a selection of actual letters from actual people at the time, some of them very interesting (Dickens and a few other literary figures show up here). I like the professional closing of "Yours Faithfully" and the informal one "Ever Yours, en amitie (from a woman to her close friend).

 

I also like the correspondence between Queen Victoria and US President James Buchanan, particularly Victoria's response to the invitation for the Prince of Wales to visit the President at the White House during his visit to Canada and the US. The Queen begins the letter simply "My Good friend" and ends it "I remain ever, your good friend". It seemed so refreshingly cordial and without pretense, especially for a letter from a Royal.

 

John

 

[shostakovich]

"Illegitimi non carborundum" means "Don't let the b*stards grind you down." Sometimes people translate "carborundum as "wear" instead of "grind". It doesn't really matter, since "carborundum" is a trade name, not an actual Latin word and "illegitimi" is not actually a Latin word, either -- the sentence is what you might call pseudo-Latin.

This the best one so far!! I may well use it.

 

I personally don't like religious ones as I find them offensive.

 

How about " Best wishes and Darwin for ever!!"

[prodigo is totus]

You make a good point about the poor translations. My screen name (Prodigo is totus), does not clearly translate from Latin to English. My intentions were to translate "spend it all", from English to Latin, but it seems the program used some items that could have several different meanings......

 

Scott

 

 

Dear BillTheEditor,

 

OOoooooooooooo-- Thank you for your translation!

 

Do you by chance know of a decent translation program to translate English to Latin?

 

I want to write a Latin phrases correctly.

 

Respectfully,

Maria

Actually, I don't think I've ever seen a program that does English-to-Latin translations. At least not a reliable program.

 

There is http://www.stars21.com/translator/english_to_latin.html but it really doesn't do a very good job.

 

Because Latin is a highly inflected language, doing machine translation is a very difficult challenge.

 

[GreenVelvet]

I just got a letter from another FPN snail-mailer that uses a closing I haven't seen before:

 

"See you at the mailbox."

 

Love it! I'll be using that myself, too.

[Chris]

My last "closing" to a friend who was marshalling at a 3-day (horse-riding) event in our "summer" was

 

"And may the length of your wellies exceed the depth of the puddles,"

 

Chris

[ishimaru_kaito]

I tend to put regards on business mail, other than that it's only letters to my fiancee... So it's usually something involving love.

 

Much love,

 

Much love and hugs

 

etc...

 

I liked one mentioned earlier, and came up with my own variation :

 

From my pen to your eyes...

 

But a great thread, and given me many ideas for the next batch of letters

 

Rich

[Judybug]

. . . This book - The hand-book of letter-writing from 1861 (with apologies to those outside of the US who may be restricted from access to Google Books) - has some interesting closings. It is a selection of actual letters from actual people at the time, some of them very interesting (Dickens and a few other literary figures show up here). I like the professional closing of "Yours Faithfully" and the informal one "Ever Yours, en amitie (from a woman to her close friend). . . .

 

Thanks for this link! What a dandy little book! I love old books like this.

 

Ever your faithful nib fellow,

Judybug

[Pen Nut]

"Cheers big ears" to mates.

 

I look forward to hearing from you and I remain meanwhile,

 

Yours sincerely

 

ME! to business contacts

 

 

[ernestcow]

I usually use a simple 'Cheers!'

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

I wish the Italian expression "mi raccomando" had a valid translation in English.

Missing this, I close with the next best thing: "Take care of yourself."

Although I just signed off a letter with "Live long and prosper" to remind them that I'm a total nerd.

[Bookman]

For formal or business correspondence, I close with Sincerely. With friends and relatives, I let the flow of my letter close itself and I sign my name.

[abstract49]

I wish the Italian expression "mi raccomando" had a valid translation in English.

Missing this, I close with the next best thing: "Take care of yourself."

Although I just signed off a letter with "Live long and prosper" to remind them that I'm a total nerd.

 

I cannot imagine why I have not thought of this! My next letters will all end this way.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

For formal or business correspondence, I close with Sincerely. With friends and relatives, I let the flow of my letter close itself and I sign my name.

I've noticed that this often sounds like the most natural way to close a letter for me, but I'm always nervous about whether it will feel too abrupt and cold to the reader, so I try to add a closing formula.

But I might try to let the letter close itself with the last paragraph, and see how it feels when I re-read it.

[monquito]

I have some fun mostly-tongue-in-cheek ones, but they must be reserved for very very close friends only. Unfortunately, I am new-ish and thus my pen pals are not yet in this category.

 

Yours for a socialist America,

Cripple the war machine,

Smash US imperialism,

Eat the rich,

etc.

[Gunr]

 

I have some fun mostly-tongue-in-cheek ones, but they must be reserved for very very close friends only. Unfortunately, I am new-ish and thus my pen pals are not yet in this category.

 

Yours for a socialist America,

Cripple the war machine,

Smash US imperialism,

Eat the rich,

etc.

I like them.... they would be equally effective in setting my military buddies on edge ha!

 

My email closures in the military were always R/S Respectfully submitted.

Now it's Best Regards

 

But I struggle with one that doesn't sound over used or cheesy so this has been a huge help.

[Tom Kellie]

For formal or business correspondence, I close with Sincerely. With friends and relatives, I let the flow of my letter close itself and I sign my name.

 

~ Bookman:

 

Your approach is the same as mine.

In certain cases, I conclude with “Hoping for better days to come,” or “With Appreciation,”, where approprisate.

Tom K.

[TaylorJ]

It really varies a lot for me.

For work and general correspondence, with no particular tone needed: "All the best."

 

For family and loved ones, I actually do sign "Love, Taylor." (Although if it's family, we have an odd tradition of signing "Fred Astaire" or "Frank Sinatra" or "Bette Davis" due to my maternal family's love of black-and-white movies. So, with family, it's not even always my name.)

 

For church "family" and friends, "Blessings."

 

For other occasions I do often sign "With sympathy," "With appreciation," "With my condolences," and so on.

 

I really don't have a signature way to close my letters, other than the fact that I inevitably add a post-script, because I am terrible at planning out my letters!

[abstract49]

This thread has made me feel that I am being too formal with my correspondents [pen pals if you wish], because I've signed off with "Regards" for a long time, with most of them. Some of them say "Warm Regards," which is nice. But I never thought of "regards" as being formal or cold.

 

With business letters, I used to use "Yours" or "Cordially," because "Sincerely [yours]" always seemed overworked. But then, who writes business letters these days? Not many, I would venture to say.

 

Anyhow, I am definitely going to start looking for a more original, or at least less usual, way to sign off.

 

Live long and prosper!

[BaronWulfraed]

It has been decades, but my normal close was just a terse "Sincerely". "Yours truly" feels too much like I should be pledging my troth to some Lady.