Required Modern Sentence

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Anonymous

#491072 Thu, 20 Mar 08 02:23 PM

The truth is "Kindly do the needful" has absolutely no direct translation. In an email, formal or informal, Americians do not have an "exit line" that says anything remotely close to that. I'm sure it's a culture thing, but americians see this as you saying "Do your job." It seems more like a command and less like a friendly jesture.

Agreed, Americians see "Kindly do the needful" and get a good chuckle, make a couple preverted jokes, and move on. Thats because we simply don't use "needful" much less "the needful". For Americian english... and I would suspect brittish as well, try this...

Hi Joe,

Customer number 55477 is looking to see where his order is. Can you check if this customer exists? I've looked everywhere but cannot find any record of this customer.

Thanks

- Bob

This is a completely formal letter for a common inter-office/business email. So my suggestion, simply drop the line entirely. It serves no purpose in modern english.

Anonymous

Numbers, Jokes, Formal letter, Formal letters, Translation

Grammar Geek

#491075 Thu, 20 Mar 08 02:30 PM

Anonymous

This is a completely formal letter for a common inter-office/business email.

I can't agree with you that it's a completely formal letter. I would agree that it's common and appropriate in most workplace settings, but it's a far cry from formal.

This thread is very old, but one replacement phrase would be "I appreciate your help with this issue."

Grammar Geek

Joined on Tue, Jan 10 2006

Pennsylvania, USA

Veteran Member (15,993)

Barbara, who answers in American English.

Formal letter, Formal letters

Marius Hancu

#491094 Thu, 20 Mar 08 03:05 PM

Needful was used by American writers

needful

requisite, indispensable

Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dict.

but that was a long time ago.

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Veteran Member (11,673)

Anonymous

#536233 Thu, 03 Jul 08 12:41 PM

I agree with most here....as an American the phrase is at best humorous. It could be interpreted as some sort of philanthropic message or even sexual. But ultimately it is an unnecessary closing to an email. Chances are you're emailing because something needs to be done or addressed. I don't need to be told twice to do something....I got it the first when I read your email!

Anonymous

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