Signing off a business letter
Dear Dr English,
I just want to know, should I use 'yours truly' or 'yours faithfully' to sign off a business letter?
Christine Chou
'Yours faithfully' is the British way of signing off a business letter. It is used when the name of the receiver is not mentioned in the salutation. If the receiver is mentioned in the salutation, 'Yours sincerely' is used to sign off.
In America, people sign off their business letter with only 'Yours truly', no matter how the letter writer addresses the receiver. So decide on the format of your letter and use the ending as such.
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Deceptive appearance
Dear Dr English,
I would like to know the difference between a hyphen and a dash. Thank you.
Jasleen Kaur
Both a hyphen and a dash are punctuation marks. They look practically the same, with the dash being slightly longer than the hyphen: ' ' and '-'. Their grammatical function is different. A dash is generally used in three different ways.
- In front of a list or by way of an explanation.
There are a few things to do before we move into the house having the air-conditioning installed, cleaning up and landscaping.
- In front of and following a group of words or a clause that adds details to the main sentence but isn't necessary for the sentence to be grammatically correct.
Kenny has grown up a lot – physically and mentally in the last six months.
- In front of an adverbial clause, or other groups of words, for emphasis.
Let Kim join our team if she wants to.
Children must be developed in all four respects mentally, physically,
emotionally and socially.
We use a hyphen when we canŐt fit the whole word at the end of a line; you can put part of the word and a hyphen in one line and the rest of the word in the next one. A hyphen is also used to join two or more words together to make a compound adjective. Be sure to break words at their syllables when using a hyphen.
He gazed at the blue-green water before setting sail.
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