ON LETTER WRITING, PART2

ON LETTER WITING: 2

CLASSIFICATION OF LETTERS

Letters may be classified according to their different purposes, Such as

i.                   Social letters that include Friendly letters and Notes of Invitations.

ii.                 Business letters that include Letters of Application, Letters to government officials, Letters to the Editors of News Papers.

These letters have different characteristics which we should be aware of.

SOCIAL LETTERS

1.   Friendly Letters

Letters to relatives and intimate friends should be written in an easy, simple colloquial style. They will be of the nature of friendly chat. The tone will be informal just as in friendly talk. In friendly letters, we can touch in many subjects and in any order we prefer.

But this does not permit us to be careless, we must preserve some order in expressing our thoughts there by it can be fully logical.  While writing a friendly letter, we must be bound by the rules of spelling, punctuation, grammar and idiomatic expressions.

In friendly letters to relatives and intimate friends, the proper form of address is the name(without surname) of the person to whom the letter is being written, prefixed by qualifying marks like Dear, My dear, Dearest etc. For example: My dear Rahul, Dear papa, Dearest Mummy etc

In case your friendly letter is to an ordinary friend who is much older than you, or of superior rank, it is respectful to use a prefix like Mr. , Mrs. Or Shri.  For example: Dear Mr. Prabhat Ranjan etc.

The forms of subscriptions are varied. The following can be used in letters to relatives and near friends. For example: Yours affectionately, Your loving daughter, Yours very sincerely etc. You can use phrases like with love and best wishes, from your affectionate friend etc. as a subscription.

In concluding letters to friends and relatives whom you address as Mr. or Mrs. Etc, You should use the subscriptions like Your sincerely or very sincerely and it should be preceded by With kind regards or very kind regard.

Please note that sincerely should not be used in letters beginning with formal Dear sir, after which the proper word of subscription is faithfully or truly.

Example1: Write a letter to your grandfather on his birthday.

67/B Yogesh Ghosh lane Kolkata26 22 Dec. 2018 My Dearest Grandpa, Happy birth day, with a wish from the core of my heart for many happy returns of this day.  May god keep you healthy and happy for ever. You have alwys been a kind and generous friend to me and on this great occasion I take the opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your every action of generosity, love, care and affection to me. I was so glad to listen from papa that you are still hale and hearty, and can take your four mile walk every early morning and still spare time for gym. I am sending you a book which I hope you will like. You have always been a book worm and I am glad that your eyesight remains as good as ever-so mummy says. I am doing my studies with proper attention and hope to get selected in the next campus interview. Reply me soon. With love and best wishes Your loving grandson Sagar.

Exercises:

a.      Write a letter to your cousin inviting him to visit your home during the upcoming vacation.

b.      You are in a boarding school; write a letter to your papa informing him about your well being.

c.       Write a letter to your sister on any topic you wish.

See you on our next lesson on the same topic. Please visit our website www.englishgrammartoday.com for regular English grammar updates. Stay healthy, stay blessed.