Writing a letter

Hello everyone,

I have one question about writing a letter.

Today I have learned in School, that the salutation in English letters comes at fist, and after that the subject line.

Is that right?

(In German letters we use at first the subject line and then the salutation.)

Thanks in advance,
Dany

I also use the same form than you, that's why I was a little bit confused.

Thanks for your fast answer


Kind regards,
Dany

Hi nona the brit,

Luckily I don't use oitment.

Again, maybe there is something different in our cultures. Greece80, if you are still tuned into this channel, you should be aware that there are often differences depending upon location.

In nona's letter, I think she forgot to include the colon after "Dear Mr. Poster:" In any event, you should always include the colon. I always use a period after "Mr" as well. But I've seen others write differently.

Please see http://rwc.hunter.cuny.edu/writing/on-line/b-letter.html which is a link showing various letter forms. That's how I do write my letters as well.

Fools seldom differ, so who knows.

In searching through the Internet, most--but not all--of the sites I visited had the subject line above. But as mentioned in nona's message and in this post above, there might be regional differences. Greece80, for example, in North America, we often sign our letters, "Yours truly,". In Britian, they don't. They use "Yours faithfully," which sounds slightly odd to me in North America. I think the lesson is that nothing is absolute.

The above commentary is not meant to be disrespectful of nona.

Hope that helps.

MountainHiker

Internal Reference:

Keywords and links: Letter, form, forms, http://rwc.hunter.cuny.edu/writing/on-line/b-letter.html

Hi nona the brit,

That's excellent and interesting information.

Can you find a web site that provides the "proper" method of writing a business letter in Britian? I tried, but I came up empty.

In North America, a colon is used after Dear Mr. X: in a business setting, and in a personal setting, a comma is used.

What is somewhat interesting is that Canada tends to use the British spelling (organise versus organize), yet Canada also follows the American punctuation (Dear Mr. X:) and closings (Yours truly).

You can see from Martha Stewart's letter to the judge that a colon is required. As we know, Martha Stewart is a stickler for detail.

It would be good to have a UK reference site on how business letters should be written. Then when asked in the future, we can simply refer others to those two sites (UK and the one I mentioned previously).

MountianHiker

Hi Greece80,

But the most business letters are written in British English.

Not on this side of the Atlantic. Perhaps your statement is true in Europe. But given that America dominates the world in commerce, I think most business letters are written using American English.

Anyway, you have your answers and your supporting rationale. So you should be prepared.

MountainHiker