Talk:Valediction/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Regards

In my experience, by far the most common valediction in english language business letters and e-mails is "Regards" (not "Kind regards" or "Rgds"), followed by "Best Regards". --195.33.105.17 11:51, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I use "Kind regards," but I think you're right that it is less common. I have never seen "Rgds" in an email. Much more common is "Thanks" or the many variations on that. However, this would all count as original research, and should probably not be included in the article, unless somebody has a source to site. :-) W0lfie 20:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Rare and pop valedictions

What about popular valedictions written in casual emails? Phrases like "Keep it real", "Over and out", "Peace", "Keep it surreal", "May the Force be with you", etc...?

Methinks I will add a bit. Please feel free to remove it if you deem it inappropriate to an article on valedictions.

Has anyone actually ever received an email with valediction "over and out" or "may the force be with you" etc, or is this just one Star Wars/Top Gun geek who has a tainted perspective on the world? Or are these common in the States but not Britain or something? I think it's a good idea to have an email section, but how about some that actually get used; "Regards", "Cheers", "Ta", or commonly nothing at all. Or is it my perspective that's warped?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleepitoff57 (talk • contribs) 23:58, 25 September 2006

I end my email with "Valediction, J" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.143.238.107 (talk • contribs) 05:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Citation needed

"and many more, including "Love", etc.[citation needed]" lol. Why does this need citation? Dannpm 16:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC) → [sic] Preceding unsigned comment added by Fatzebra (talk • contribs) 16:24, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Same for "for additional brevity it is occasionally abbreviated to simply "Rgds".[citation needed]" -- if an editor lives in a certain country and knows this happens every day, does the statement really need a citation..? Erik 08:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Funny looking text

"SOB" under "Old Formal Valedictions" looks very much like vandalism. It should be removed if it is vandalism, otherwise perhaps a citation should be added so that it looks genuine. --Whiteknox 20:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This is confirmed to be vandalism as it was previously "YOB" (Your Obedient Servant). An unknown IP changed it from "Y" to "S" without any explanations. I'm changing it back. Thanks for pointing it out Whiteknox. Soulrefrain 01:25, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this article reliable??

I cannot find ANY sources for a single paragraph of text within this article. It has been tagged since NOVEMBER 2006. What to do?? Burntsauce 21:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

"Split up by language?"

Should this be split up by language? The french text is cool, but not very useful to me as a non-French speaker. :) I'm new at this so please excuse me if I'm saying something out of turn. --JByrd 20:19, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. No, your comment is exactly the kind of value-adding suggestion that makes this the greatest encyclopedia on earth.

I think the French text is extremely useful within this same article. I am an anglophone learning French as a second language, and for months I've been looking for this kind of information anywhere on the Web—I never even thought of looking on Wikipedia, talk less of the English Wikipedia. The value of having various languages together (as opposed to splitting them off to various languages, as you suggested) is that, as an English speaker, it is easier for me to compare what equivalent valedictions other languages use (I hope, in time, people add Spanish, German, and whatever other languages) for direct comparison. This would be much more difficult if the different languages were on different pages. Of course, the English section must be prominent at the top, as it is now. In fact, I hope to perhaps translate this article into the French Wikipedia—complete with the section on English valedictions—if I have some time.

So, if you don't mind, I'll remove your "split" and "expert" tags. However, if I have not adequately addressed your concerns, please feel free to add them back. ~ Chitu 17:47, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Would a German section be useful as well? Maybe an "Other languages" section? --W0lfie 20:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I don't understand why the English version of this encyclopedia is dedicated to both French and English parts. This might be great for people trying to learn French, but that isn't exactly the intented audience. And it's extremely pretentious to say that his comment wasn't value-adding. 68.55.180.24 23:15, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Chitu said his comment was value-adding. - Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 23:58, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Suggested Merge with Valedictorian

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The result was no consensus to merge. -- IrishGuy ^talk 00:16, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that the articles Valediction and Valedictorian be merged on the grounds that the Valedictorian article is so short and could easily be inserted as a subsection in the Valediction article. The words valediction and valedictorian share a common derivation. A valedictorian is, in essence, one who delivers a valediction, therefore to have two separate articles for them seems to be unnecessary.Neelix 18:18, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Strong Opposition - I would strongly oppose a proposed merger of the two articles, valedictorian and valediction. There is no argument that these two terms share a common derivation. However, the two terms have very, very different meanings and -- through both time and usage -- the first word has essentially nothing to do with the second word. Yes, in the "old days", a valedictorian was the student who delivered a valediction to the class (typically at graduation). Nowadays, however, the word "valedictorian" means anything and everything that a school defines it to mean (e.g., usually the top ranked academic student) ... whether or not such student actually delivers a valediction to the class at graduation. There has, in fact, been some discussion and debate about this at the Talk Page for Valedictorian. I think that, over time and through usage, the two words have a divergent enough meaning that they merit separate articles. The common linguistic derivation, while interesting, is too tenuous to support a merger. Nowadays, the term "valedictorian" means anything and everything but "the student who delivers the valedictory address." Its historical meaning has become lost and replaced with the common usage of "highest ranked student." While historically linked, the two terms have little -- if any -- connection today. If indeed a school utilizes its highest ranked student (the valedictorian) to deliver a valediction, that is only by coincidence or by policy -- accentuating the fact that the two terms have diverged in meaning and currently bear little relationship to each other. A merger here would be tantamount to, say, merging the articles on "astronaut" and "astronomy" simply because they share a common derivation ("astron" = star). Yes, the article on valedictorian is short (but accurate) ... so be it. Other than tenuous historical rooting, it really has nothing to do with valediction at all. Strong opposition to this proposed merger. (Joseph A. Spadaro 02:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC))

Strongly oppose. I could say why, or I could say "Joseph above just said it perfectly." No reason to reinvent the wheel with my reasoning -- Joseph is clearly correct. - Revolving Bugbear (formerly Che Nuevara) 23:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Strongly oppose as well, with the same reasoning. Etymology isn't enough to lump two divergent meanings into one article. Ig8887 (talk) 00:51, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - They're really not related. --ubiquity (talk) 02:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Yours truly,

How do I access the REDIRECT page for the above? I worked on it in September, so I want to see what happened in the discussion which resulted in a REDIRECT.

Yours truly, Ludvikus 17:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Go to this page: [Talk:Yours truly,] 81.107.209.253 12:36, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know the origin of "Yours truly"? I can't find anything. Is it simply a reference to the speaker or does it mean something like "I'm here for you", etc?? It would see that at one point it must have had more meaning than simply a generic sign off in a letter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.143.1.108 (talk) 15:59, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Contested statement removed

In informal usage, they are often abbreviated to "Rgds" {{Fact|date=December 2006}},

Please do not return this information to the article without a citation.--BirgitteSB 14:56, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Complimentary closing - not Valediction

I think the editors of confused the two concepts. And this article should be moved or merged.

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 12:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Complimentary closings are a form of valediction. Possibly could merge complimantary closings into valediction, but i think maybe it would be better to just put a link betweeen them? 81.107.209.253 12:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The text of both articles is currently contradictory to one another - the Complimentary closing article states that "valediction is the act of bidding farewell, especially orally", but the Valediction article states that "valediction is an expression used to say farewell (goodbye), especially at the end of a letter". This should be cleared and resolved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.46.98.249 (talk) 21:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Yours for Scotland

I added "Yours for Scotland" and note that it was the only valediction on the entire page to have a citation at that time. While the number of Google finds is low, it seems to apply much more to the English Wikipedia than the extensive section on French valedictions, which are not backed up by any evidence at all. This article needs significant work and to delete the only referenced valediction would seem to be a backward step. Tartan Nutter (talk) 13:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi Tartan Nutter. The reason that "yours truly", "yours sincerely" etc do not have citations is that nobody has bothered to provide them yet. They could easily be cited (my book on titles and forms of address has most of them, including "Yours aye"). These are unlikely to be challenged. The same goes for the French valedictions. "Yours for Scotland" is the only case that fails the verifiability criteria. WP:VERIFY states that "any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation". In this case, you should read WP:NEO (the article says "Neologisms are words and terms that have recently been coined, generally do not appear in any dictionary, but may be used widely or within certain communities.") What the article has to say applies to all words and phrases and not just neologisms and is extremely apt in this case:

"Support for article contents... must come from reliable sources... To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources... about the term—not books and papers that use the term... Neologisms that are in wide use—but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources—are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. They may be in time, but not yet... An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs and books that use the term) are insufficient..."

You can read the whole thing yourself. What you need to provide is a a manual or a newspaper that supports your claim that this phrase is in use, not just one of the tiny number of examples you can find on Google. I certainly won't stand in your way if you can provide an acceptable source. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 20:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Although there is a low number (643) of Google results, many of those are letters from the First Minister of Scotland. As for secondary sources, http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2008/07/vaz-cameron-labour-ealing-dave mistakenly claims the First Minister uses "Yours of Scotland." The fact that a number of comments attached to articles citing this story offer "Yours for Scotland" as the correct version, and that the only results in Google for "Yours of Scotland" are copies of the New Statesman story would be secondary evidence, surely. Tartan Nutter (talk) 10:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I really don't see any evidence that this is suitable encyclopedic material. I see a comment by someone called nezavisimost, who claims this is very common in Scotland. His comment, even if it were true (which, as the Google results show, it obviously isn't) could hardly form the basis of an article, nor could any number of similar messages published on internet forums. Going back to WP:VERIFY as I said before evidence must come from published sources: "Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable." If this really is coming into common use in Scotland, then it can only be a matter of time before someone notices and a proper source is published. Then Wikipedia could mention it too. Let's not pre-empt that. --Lo2u ^{(T • C)} 22:42, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Best regards, KR, BR

I have never heard a native speaker of English use "Best regards". "Kind regards", often, and "Regards", often, but never "Best Regards". However, I have seen it a lot in Europe, from German and Finnish speakers.

As well, I had never seen "BR" or "KR" before coming to Europe.

Am I just wrong?

Is it possible to get rid of the word "especially" before "Best regards"? And, if other people agree, maybe write how "Best regards", "KR" and "BR" are becoming more common, especially with speakers who have learnt English as a second language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dubiosity (talk • contribs) 10:48, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

"Sincerely, a valediction that is common in the US"

Just in passing. I found that the disambiguation link for this article is headed "Sincerely, a valediction that is common in the US". I would argue that said valediction is more common in Britain than it is in America. I would propose however that this might be changed to something similar to "Sincerely, a valediction that is common in English" or "in English speaking countries" would be more appropriate. Initially I found this article hard to find as I don't consider Sincerely to be a purely US tradition. Any thoughts? 82.153.199.114 (talk) 14:31, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

History of Sincerely/Faithfully

Does anyone know why sincerely is used and when you know the name and vice versa for faithfully.....ie the history of the terms? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.109.154.245 (talk) 05:43, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

"Yours, etc."

I have often seen (see for example, Project Gutenberg etexts of the memoirs of A. Lincoln, N. Buonaparte, T. Roosevelt, the novels of Jane Austen) the valediction "Yours, etc." Anyone have an idea what that "etc." stands for? It seems to 19th Century writers that the answer to that question is so exceedingly obvious as to never require writing out the valediction in full.

Perhaps it merely stands for whatever single word you feel like inserting: "Sincerely", or "truly", or "faithfully", ... but that begs the question, why would they feel it necessary to replace "sincerely" with "etc.", thus saving an enormous 8 characters worth of page space/ink.

I believe instead that there was a long-winded standardized valedictory phrase. But precisely what that phrase is I have not been able to discover. Perhaps the answer to that can be added to this fine article. Firstrock 19:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's Merriam Webster's: "etc" abbreviation "et cetera".

Oh, one more thing, "Yours, etc." is a formal usage of lawyers - at least in the New York.

Yours, etc. Ludvikus 17:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I am a lawyer in New York, and I have never seen it used in court papers. Indeed, I have never seen it used in the US at all; my only encounter with this form has been in Britain. J. G. Graubart (talk) 16:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I changed the french-english translations to be more accurate instead of just a random english valediction thats at best remotely similar. Also notes should be added to differentiate between valedictions with romantic connotations like yours faithfully vs yours sincerely. We don't want somebody thinking their lawyer is comming on to them.156.34.83.111 (talk) 19:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

XOXO

Not a formal Valediction but one I have seen in frequent use in the united states. Not sure if it is in use in other countries as well. In use since 1765 according to Hugs_and_Kisses, probably deserves mention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Govtrust (talk • contribs) 18:03, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

N/R

I have never seen this valediction. What does it stand for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.182.41 (talk) 16:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Definition of O.G.

In Phantom I assume it stood for Opera Ghost, but when it's used in the context of a formal letter or whatnot, what does it stand for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SilverPaladin (talk • contribs) 22:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I too would like to move this question up the agenda. What does "O.G." denote in this context? –Tommy Kronkvist (talk), 11:26, 24 August 2010 (UTC).

I believe it to simply be a carry-over example from the story. As far as I remember, the recipients in the story are unfamiliar with the term "O.G." and wonder what it means. This indicates to me that it has no standard meaning and can be replaced with any other name. I believe that it should, in fact, be replaced with a standard name (e.g. John Doe) to show that it's meant to be a signature, which would be the logical thing to follow the valediction. (I hope this has been understandable.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.205.32.206 (talk) 12:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I just checked the history, it was changed from "A.B." to "O.G." sometime in 2008 without any comment. I will take the liberty to change it back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.205.32.206 (talk) 12:47, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Variant Usage

Having just googled this there would seem to be significant different usage in different english speaking countries and Im not coonvinced I would understand what to use where having read this article. Sandpiper (talk) 10:44, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Capitalization of valedictions (> 1 word)

Would someone care to amend the article with a clarification regarding capitalization of valedictions > 1 word in English? Valediction#Regards.2C_kind_regards.2C_best_regards mixes fully-capitalized and first-word-capitalized approaches whereas the rest of the article seems to predominantly capitalize the first word only. Is one more correct/common over the other? Would they both stand the scrutiny of an English grammer teacher? Skayser (talk) 12:01, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

German abbreviated valedictions in E-mail

"It is possible in informal and rapid e-mail communication to sometimes use abbreviations of the forms, unlike in English"

I vote that "unlike in English" is not true at all, as R. or KR can be used for Regards and Kind Regards respectively, and they are extremely common across the board, and all companies I communicate with use these abbreviations, as do I. I'm not a regular contributor/member and so thought it would be inappropriate to jump to gun and do this myself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.110.229.229 (talk) 21:26, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

i don't know where else to write this so i will do so here: /* German */ i didn't change anything but since i lack the knowledge of wikipedia and maybe even english i'll state my problem w/ this text: Hochachtungsvoll is in todays german viewed upon as ironic it is never used not even when the citizen addresses the state or vice versa "Mit freundlichen Grüßen" even comes from the financial institution "hochachtungsvoll" is only used if one deliberately tries to to disrespect the addressed person —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.132.183.144 (talk) 19:47, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

As a German native I have to disagree: There are a number of formal letters on my table (either from lawyers or state officails) that end with "Hochachtungsvoll" so it's indeed still in use. --60.208.243.249 (talk) 04:51, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

>>A popular form in Germany in recent years, hdl (hab dich lieb, lit. "am fond of you") and hdgdl (hab dich ganz doll lieb, lit. "am very fond of you", for somewhere between "I like you" and "I love you") has found increased usage in SMS text messaging and e-mails in more intimate relationships.<< It was popular in the beginning of 21st century when mail and text messages been something new but nowadays it sounds silly if not even childish. I like wiki gives examples about other countries but that's quite outdated. 85.178.228.49 (talk) 12:05, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

UK?

The text gives US closings, with two US sources listed. But UK usage is different (see, e.g., BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv153.shtml, which includes the very non-American "Yours faithfully" with no punctuation following it). Kdammers (talk) 10:13, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

English valedictions deleted

I understand the reasons behind the repeated deletion of most of the content on English valedictions. However if one consistently applies the same logic, then the section on Portuguese valedictions ought to be similarly expunged, being as it is an equally unsourced morass of text and five times more in violation of WP:MOSHEAD. In compromise should it not be left alone but reworked until sources can be found?

Acer Demeticus (talk) 22:52, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

The lack of detail on English valedictions is serious problem. This page is now effectively useless as a reference for English speakers. (NH10283 01:31, 23 September 2016 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Purkaeus (talk • contribs)

I came to look up a reference for "Yours &c" and all the information is gone. Why is it getting deleted? --Farside268 (talk) 20:35, 8 May 2017 (UTC)