Yours Faithfully / Yours Sincerely

My old English teacher taught us that, when ending a letter, use:

'Yours Faithfully' - for a recipient you have never met, and:
'Yours Sincerely' - for a recipient you know.

Is this true? The reason I ask is because, when taken literally,
'Yours faithfully' sounds just a little on the tossy side to me.

F.Y.I. - I'm writing a cover letter to an employer.

Thanks,

Yours Inquisitively,

Paddy

Hello Paddy,

I am glad that you have aroused this question before I did.Maybe,I think you use 'faithfully' to give an impression for the reader that you are trustworthy.For 'sincerely',I think since you have been a very sincere person to the reader you are still is.

I now would like to have others comments too.

I use 'faithfully' when I don't use a name (Dear Sir or Madam) and 'sincerely' when I use a name, regardless of whether I know them or not. This is the traditional model I was taught for British letters.

That is the standard, and correct, way to end a formal letter: "Yours sincerely" if you addressed the recipient by name, "Yours faithfully" otherwise.

Yes, taken literally, it does seem "a little on the tossy side", but really it's a convention. The convention was set at a time when it sounded perfectly fine; attitudes have changed since then, but the convention remains. Just think of it as a meaningless sequence of words that means: "Message ends".

Incidentally, this is the British convention. American convention is to use "Sincerely" (without "Yours") for any formal letter, regardless of whether you started with "Dear Mr. Hackenbacker" or "Dear sir or madam".

Are "Faithfully Yours" and "Sincerely Yours" correct?

dihen, you amuse me! Here you go inverting things again!Is it possible?:lol:

Yours Faithfully and Yours Sincerely must be a BE style of formal business letters. In AE, the traditional complimentary closings are "Sincerely" or "Sincerely yours" or "Very truly yours." Only the first word is capitalized.

Ouisch said:

Only the first word is capitalized.

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I'm glad you mentioned that. The same is true for the British versions:

Yours sincerely,
Yours faithfully,

A long time ago, "Yours truly" was the standard way to end a personal letter. These days, of course, we live in much more relaxed times, and for personal letters you can sign off any way you like (within reason). Common phrases include "Best wishes," "Love from," "Regards," and many others.

rewboss said:

I'm glad you mentioned that. The same is true for the British versions:
Yours sincerely,
Yours faithfully,
A long time ago, "Yours truly" was the standard way to end a personal letter. These days, of course, we live in much more relaxed times, and for personal letters you can sign off any way you like (within reason). Common phrases include "Best wishes," "Love from," "Regards," and many others.

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I have seen some old ones (BE) addressed to the employer
ending with "Your obedient servant" !! And these are
to the manager in a bank, not a private employer.
I suspect this ending perhaps only existed in
some of the British colonies, and it may not be
actually used in England even in the old days.

It does sound a bit excessive and creepy. ;-)

Given that, as mentioned above, the phrases are essentially meaningless and just stand in for 'message ends', I don't really see why teachers harp on about it. It doesn't matter and I would certainly take more issue with someone who looked down on a correspondent who got it 'wrong' that the perpetrator of the crime.

I'm not a subscriber to the idea that good grammar and spelling serve no purpose - the rules have been developed over a long time to iron out ambiguities as much as possible and that's very important - but rules like this one are responsible for turning people off good writing, with the rules that do matter suffering as a consequence.

These things are just over my head. Why do I need to remember so many rules? Yours faithfully/Yours sincerely/Sincerely/Sincerely yours, and even sometimes people say Yours. So when I write to a person I even need to know whether the person is from USA or from UK?

dihen said:

Are "Faithfully Yours" and "Sincerely Yours" correct?

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Correct but old-fashioned and rarely used.

gdzack said:

These things are just over my head. Why do I need to remember so many rules? Yours faithfully/Yours sincerely/Sincerely/Sincerely yours, and even sometimes people say Yours. So when I write to a person I even need to know whether the person is from USA or from UK?

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Not necessarily.

Just hold to the rubrik that if you know the person's name (Dear Mr Smith), you end your Yours sincerely or even just "Sincerely". If you do not know the person's name (Dear Sir/Madam), you end with Yours faithfully.

If you know the person well (Dear John/Dear Mary), you can end with "Yours" or "Best Wishes".

I'm fascinated.

In American English, there's just one rule: only capitalize the first word.

We don't use the above phrases. We have four standard sign-offs:

Yours truly,
Sincerely,
Sincerely yours,
Love,

The first three don't mean anything and are interchangeable. The fourth is what is it is.

I'd never heard of Yours Faithfully. Glad I stopped in!

Yours faithfully and Yours truly carry the same level of formality, and are used here interchangeably by company/public officials writing to someone they have not previously contacted.

Very rarely now are the reversals used.

Even more archaic:

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant

;-) and I receive a letter ending like this, I know that it must be regarded with great caution