Hot answers tagged valediction
32
Putting formal salutations and complimentary closes into an e-mail tends to make them very formal compared to most e-mails.
In my experience working in the software industry, people who always put them into ordinary business e-mails come off as unnecessarily formal. Often foreigners have been taught in English class to do this, and the result is that I ...
15
"Yours sincerely" and "Yours faithfully" now sound somewhat formal and I'd advise against them unless your email is otherwise official or formal in nature.
"Best regards" (or just "Br") is, in my experience, extremely common in business emails, and a safe choice for many situations. "Best wishes," is also a common alternative that falls into this category.
...
13
Business Email/Letter Closings:
Best Regards,
Cordially,
Enjoy,
Enthusiastically,
Good Wishes,
Many Thanks,
Most Sincerely,
Regards,
Sincerely,
Thank You,
With Confidence.
Informal Email/Letter Closings:
Adios,
Blessings,
Cheerio,
Cheers,
God Bless,
Gotta Boogie,
Grace and Peace,
Have Fun,
Health and Happiness,
Keep the Faith,
Later Vader,
Later ...
13
I'll tend to use "Best regards," for anything even semi-formal, including correspondence with people in a business context whom I don't know very well.
When I use to work at NEC, it was considered the way you must sign off your emails when dealing with any of the Tokyo managers or engineers, and so it kind of just stuck.
For less formal, it'll be "Thanks" ...
9
As a contractor I tend to just use:
Yours,
I like to think it implies their 'ownership' of me for that time.
The longer versions do feel too formal for e-mail, or too loaded with meaning.
Otherwise I use the ever popular:
Regards,
8
Yes, many use that way, also in "Best Regards".
But, especially if we're talking about some official/formal email, I'd suggest to write according to the normal rules of orthography.
In that case, write them like this: "Best regards", "Thanks and regards" or "Yours faithfully", etc.
8
John S. Locke states in The Art of Correspondence (1884):
In closing a letter never subscribe yourself Yours, &c. &c. is an abbreviation of etc., which is an abbreviation from the Latin words et cetera, meaning and others, or, and so forth; forth means onward or forward. Hence there can be no propriety in saying I am yours and others, or I am ...
7
The comma is the only acceptable punctuation to place after the valediction:
Sincerely,
John Doe
This is because the period is only necessary at the end of a sentence or abbreviation. The comma, on the other hand, usually separates related phrases within a sentence. In this case, the context is not a sentence (Sincerely, John Doe), but convention ...
7
There seems to be a great uncertainty among business people on how to close - and address - emails. Looking at my emails, I have found that a lot of people simply have a template, which either has their name and position/contact details, or that preceded by "Regards"/"Kind Regards".
I personally dislike "regards", because it is obvious that no-one ever ...
6
As Martha says, many thanks is perfectly idiomatic. However, it is indeed an oddly isolated idiom: most other constructions which try to treat thanks as a plural noun are ungrammatical (eg *lots of thanks), and there’s certainly no such thing as *a thank.
In the sense of “feelings of gratitude” it can be used either as a mass noun (thanks is due to God for ...
6
I think it would be stretching a point to rail against capitalising "Regards" in OP's example, though in most cases people only capitalise the first word.
I believe the intention here may be to convey both "single-word sign-off's" in a single phrase, where either on its own would obviously be capitalised. Though as @Alenanno points out, it's not uncommon to ...
5
According to Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, yours &c was a common letter form that preceded one's signature in a letter. There seems to be no clear answer on what it expands to, but this Google thread offers some direction:
I believe this
reflects much earlier usage, when in Europe letters were signed under
formal expressions or ...
5
As an American English native speaker, I interpret it as "Thanks/Have a great day from someone from England (or possibly Australia)". Not that they were intending the "from England" part - that is just my interpretation.
Edit:
I do find myself using it sometimes lately :) Also 'no worries', but I have some Australian friends, so I probably picked it up ...
4
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,
In the US military, we use Respectfully and Very Respectfully or even Hooah!. I use Respectfully when I am closing a formal letter to a peer. I also use Respectfully in any letter which might otherwise be considered informal, but in which I append my rank to my name, because the fact that I'm writing in my ...
3
If rendered this way: "Best Regards," then you have an example of honorific capitals. This is an error committed by those who do not understand the rules of written English. Of course it should be "Best regards," as only the first word of a sentence (and any proper nouns) should be capitalized.
But some people don't know that, and instead have internalized ...
3
I would generally use the suitably neutral and meaningless "Regards," in a business email - sometimes changing to "Thanks," where appropriate (always keeping the comma in a very traditional manner). On a couple of line reply I may drop any salutation. I would keep to the formal "Yours sincerely/faithfully," in a business letter.
On personal emails I would ...
3
For formal email, just as in formal letter writing, the standard set of valedictions and advice apply.* Wikipedia and supporting sources cover this in great detail, so I recommend at least having a look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valediction
For informal email, creative use of the valediction can actually add warmth and intrigue to your original ...
3
I end almost all my emails with one word only: "Bill". When I applied for a teaching job last year, I ended it with "Sincerely yours," & when I send letters to some clients, I end them with "Bill Franke, Medical Editor". "Thanks; Many Thanks; Best; & Regards" are all informal but not rude. They're not my style, so I never use them. All the rest but ...
2
When working in England, I've found that "Regards" is most common, even amongst parties that have a good relationship.
When working in Australia, "Best regards" is much more commonly used. Using simply "Regards" would seem quite standoffish.
I'm not sure which is most applicable in Denmark.
2
I was always taught to use 'Yours faithfully' in letters when addressing someone I didn't know, and 'yours sincerely' for people I did.
However no such rules exist for emails, and using either of these valedictions would seem quite stuffy and overly formal. I'd use them only (if you wished to use them at all) in formal, written correspondence.
'Best ...
2
You should capitalize only the first word in salutation, as in
Dear Mr. X
My dear Mr. X
and also, only the first word of closing
Sincerely
Very truly yours
2
I often leave off the "Dear" in such circumstances:
Mr Smith:
In regards to our previous conversation...
Moreover, if Mr. Smith has signed one of his emails to me in a manner such as this:
Best regards,
Jeff
Jeff Smith
President, EL&U Inc.
Then I might take that as a cue, and I may take the liberty of beginning subsequent ...
2
Nos. 1 and 7 are informal, but certainly not rude. I wouldn't use those shortened forms with people I didn't know very well, but they work nicely with close acquaintances, when more formal options like #3 and #11 begin to sound awkward.
No. 8 is rather formal and perhaps old-fashioned, and could be too much, but I don't think anyone would be put off by ...
1
I'm from Ireland and I see this quite a bit, in letters and email and from different companies & countries — it doesn't matter. The only pattern that I can make out is that it seems to appear a lot with the shortened form of someone's name, e.g. Matt. instead of Matthew, Ed. instead of Edward. I have also noticed it when people use just their first ...
1
In real paper-in-envelope correspondence I'd keep to the formal letter structure.
But in email, which is less formal, and between quick exchanges in a continuing dialogue I will typically go to just the person's name and a comma as an opening and sometimes if the conversation contiues long enough I drop even that and just start typing.
Similarly, you can ...
1
The salutation and closing of a business letter are formulaic sentences, nothing more. That is, there is very little variation in salutations and closings from one business letter to another. But the rules for sentence construction, capitalization, and punctuation still apply. You will normally see the salutation and closing capitalized because they are ...
1
The last paragraph in the Google thread referred to in previous answer says: "I suppose most of what I just wrote is merely conjecture. Still, one thing we can be sure about is that "Yours, etc." has been in use since 1813, when Pride and Prejudice was published, and one can assume that it was used further back than that."
Indeed, it's used in one of the ...
1
The traditional British style would be to use yours faithfully for letters starting Dear Sir, Dear Madam, or something grander such as My Lord, and to use yours sincerely for the slightly less formal letters starting with a name such as Dear Mr Smith, Dear Baroness Jones, Dear Sir James etc.
The point of both is say that the writer has been telling the ...
1
The formal rule, at least in Britain, is that if you're writing a letter to a person whose name you don't know, you start with "Dear Sir or Madam", and you end with "Yours faithfully".
If you do know the name, you start with "Dear Mr X", and end with "Yours sincerely".
However, as you note, "Best [or kind] regards" is much more common these days. But again ...
1
As reported from the NOAD (New Oxford American Dictionary) the definition of cheers is the following:
cheers /tʃɪ(ə)rz/
exclamation informal
expressing good wishes, in particular
• good wishes before drinking: “Cheers,” she said, raising her glass.
• [British] good wishes on parting or ending a conversation: Cheers, Jack, see you later.
• ...
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